Kuiper Belt Object Reclassification
by Zikare
Summary: <html><head></head>All of the Cullen children suffer from various intersexed disorders and are adopted by Carlisle and Esme. They're human, but the werewolves and vampires infringe upon their lives from every angle. Full Summary inside. AU. Rated M for Lemons.</html>
1. Summary

Kuiper Belt Object Reclassification

The title Kuiper Belt Object Reclassification refers to Pluto's reclassification from a planet, to a KBO. Like Pluto, Edward, Jasper, and the rest of the Cullen kids are reclassified from teenaged vampires, to unusual human children. This is an alternative human beginning for a classic story, but with the same old fates. Follow this unusual human version of the Cullen family as they make their journey into vampiredom.

The story begins when a single young architect living in the city, Esme, adopts her deceased sister's intersexed son, Jasper, after the boy witnesses the tragic deaths of both of his parents. She quickly realizes why the boy's paternal grandparents agreed to take in Jasper's older brother Peter, but not little Jasper. Between the emotional impact of witnessing his parents' deaths and his medical issues resulting from his hermaphroditism, Esme quickly finds herself out of her league.

Meanwhile a young doctor in a small town called Forks, Carlisle, is confronted with a family dying of SARS, the Masens. In an act of kindness, he grants a dying woman's last wish by promising to adopt her dying boy, thinking that the child will only live a few hours more. But when the boy, Edward, miraculously survives, Carlisle finds himself way over his head raising a little Edward, who also suffers from a genital abnormality.

Carlisle and Esme both seek help in the form of a weekly group therapy session, where they meet. Mutual attraction between their new care givers leads to Edward and Jasper being thrown together on play dates, and eventually as brothers. But as the new couple prepares to build their family, another orphaned intersexed child, Rosalie, is unexpectedly admitted to Carlisle's hospital and they decide to adopt again.

After adopting Rosalie, Carlisle and Esme realize that they are both infertile, and decide that their three adoptive children must be fate's way of pushing them towards their destiny. They set about to adopt other orphaned children with special or unusual needs, in order to give a home to those who are the least likely to find one otherwise. In this endeavor, they come across Emmett and Alice, who are both also intersexed. Emmett is recovering from witnessing the gory death of his father and almost being killed himself, while Alice is a patient at the local mental institution, where her birth parents left her after being unable to deal with both her epilepsy and her intersexed disorder.

I will switch points of view as I switch from telling one family member's story to the next, starting with Carlisle and Esme's love story, and then moving on to the coming of age stories of their five adoptive intersexed children, and ending with the family's descent into the world of the undead. Rated M for language and scenes of a sexual nature (may include straight, gay, and intersexed scenes, but mostly the latter).

The inspiration for this story came from writing my other story, Tetragametic Chimerism, when reviewers asked me for outtakes of what it would be like if it were another member of the Cullen family with the intersexed disorder. Parts of this story do resemble those outtakes, and the two stories start off in the same world. But you will find very quickly that they differ drastically. If you liked that story, you will probably also like this one.

*Warnings*: If you're grossed out by hermaphrodites and hermaphroditic sex, please don't read. Includes issues of child neglect and self harm. One guy dies, but he's the bad guy and not much of a character, so let's call that minor character death. On the other hand, there probably won't be any cussing.


	2. Chapter 1

Author's Note: I would like to thank my wonderful pre-reader Master of the Boot. He makes this story not suck so much. Or does he make it only suck in a good way?

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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><p>Fall 2003<p>

Carlisle's POV:

I moved to Forks three years ago to start my residency at Forks Community Hospital. When I chose Forks, I did so based on a number of considerations, such as I had inherited a house in the area and their hospital was top notch, albeit small. I was also considering specializing in infectious disease, which I could do at the nearby hospital in Port Angeles. But I never would have guessed that my move to Forks would have the ramifications upon my life that it has had.

My first two years in the small town in the Pacific Northwest went rather like I expected, with my days filled with long hours working at the hospital. I hardly had time for a life outside of work, but I had no wife, kids, or girlfriend to worry about, so that did not bother me much. But it was almost a year ago that the SARS epidemic hit and changed my life forever. That was when Edward came into my life.

I adopted eight year old Edward six months ago because his dying mother, Elizabeth Masen, begged me to. Her husband, and the boy's father, had just died of SARS, she was dying of SARS, and I was fairly certain that within a few hours, the boy too would loose his battle with SARS. So I agreed to humor her and grant a dying woman her last request. I agreed to take her boy. He was medically interesting at least.

Not only was the boy in a coma from the SARS and had likely sustained brain damage from the outrageously high temperature, but he was also born with a birth defect: a micropenis with a glanular hypospadias. There were very few medical issues associated with these mild defects, with urinary tract infections as the primary concern so the defect was more of a medical interest than an encumberment to his way of life. I had been thinking about specializing in infectious diseases, but after spending so much time pouring over the literature, I became hooked and decided to switch my specialty to intersexed disorders.

And even though I had become fascinated with the boy, I did ask Mrs. Masen why she had chosen me to adopt her son. She told me that they had no living family, as her parents had been quite old when they had her. They had died of old age years ago. Plus, she and her husband were both only children. Her husband had never met his father, and his mother had died of breast cancer long ago.

"But why not let the boy go into the system and be adopted by a loving couple?" I had asked. "I'm single and have no mother for the boy."

"Children do not need a mother and you are a doctor. My Edward is always getting sick and he will need a lot of care recovering from this illness. You will be better able to take care of him than anyone else. You must do everything within your power to make him better. You will save him," she insisted.

"But I can treat him as a doctor here without adopting him. I will do everything I can for the boy, but don't you think he would be better off with a real family?"

"No, I don't want to risk giving him to a stranger or having him moved from foster home to foster and never getting adopted. You are a nice young man: you take him and raise him for me. Please?" Liz had begged.

"But I would not know what to do with a child. I'll probably screw him up worse than the system would."

"That's nice dear, but still, with how often my Edward is in and out of the hospital, he would be much better off in the hands of a doctor."

"I see your point," I conceded, thinking that it did not matter anyway, as the boy would not make it. I had grown attached to this woman and if it would make her passing easier on her to think that her boy was going to survive long enough to be adopted, then I would do it. "I'll call in a lawyer to sign the adoption and other legal paperwork. Do you think you can hold on for me Mrs. Masen?"

"Better make it quick," she had replied in between fits of coughing.

So I complied and she signed the adoption papers only moments before she passed. And by some miracle, the child pulled through and made a full recovery! No one was more shocked by this than myself, even though I had spent days pouring over the deathly ill child doing everything I could for him. I did it not thinking that I would succeed in saving a life, but because I had promised his mother on her death bed that I would try.

Only a week after his mother passed, Edward woke up from his coma. An additional week later his fever broke. The week after that he had completely recovered from the SARS. His brain damage was even ruled to be mild to non-existent. So a month after his initial hospitalization, right before his eighth birthday, I finally took him home with me. I was so ecstatic about having saved his life that I barely even registered what I was getting myself into.

Edward was an incredibly smart and sensitive little guy that looked up to me and had dreams. He wanted to grow up to be a doctor just like me, so that he could help others as much as I had helped him. He needed me to be there for him now that he was all alone in this world. And I found myself wanting to be there for him: something about his adorable crooked smile had me wrapped around his little finger right from the beginning.

But that left me as a single male fresh out of my first residency raising an intersexed orphaned boy who was dealing with the traumatic loss of his parents and still recovering form his own near death experience. I had an income and a house and no clue what to do with a child. At least the boy's birth defects, the micropenis and hypospadias, did not seem to be a problem.

Given the situation, I quickly realized that I was out of my league, and signed Edward up for grief counseling and myself up for a support group for adoptive parents. They were scheduled at the same time at the Olympic Memorial hospital in Port Angeles, so that while I was with my support group and my therapy session, Edward had group grief counseling with other orphans, as well as an individual session with a therapist. Port Angeles was a bit of a drive, but my hospital, Forks Community, was too small to offer services like this. And it was only once a week, so it was worth it to me to get Edward and myself the help we clearly needed.

Therapy helped us a lot. In group therapy, Edward learned how to interact with other orphans and talk about his problems with his peers. In his personal session, he received help dealing with the loss of his parents. In my personal session, I learned how to deal with the stresses of being a new parent as well as how to cope with being a working single father. I also received pamphlets to read about parenting, which told me to set a schedule along with rules and boundaries. Most of the advice was welcome, so I soaked it up like a sponge.

But it was my support group that was my favorite part of the program. I was attending my first support group meeting when I first noticed her: the most breathtakingly gorgeous woman I had ever met, Esme Platt. She had soft caramel brown hair that wrapped her soft heart shaped face and full pink lips that I just wanted to kiss. She also was in the process of adopting her late sister's son Jasper and lived in the city, explaining why she was in group with me. I used that fact to my advantage, focusing my efforts on learning things about her when I probably should have been asking for advice from the other parents on how to raise little Edward.

Esme's Jasper was in Edward's therapy group, so I would see him every time I went to pick up my son. Jasper was an adorable six year old boy with brown eyes and curly blond hair. Only he seemed quiet and reserved all of the time, character traits that were not at all common in six year old boys. And he carried around a battered civil war history book like a three year old does a blankie.

Jasper's brown eyes were the same shade as Esme's, so I was sure his mother had had those same deep brown orbs. I loved catching a glimpse of Esme's eyes. I used every excuse I could think of to see more of her and those eyes. I even used Edward to my advantage, as he had made friends with Jasper. Edward tended to be a bit shy, while Jasper was going through a non-talking stage. So on his first day when all the other boys in the group paired up, Edward befriended Jasper.

And if I had to pick one of Edward's traits as my favorite, I would have to say it was his determination. This was because after I learned that Edward had talked to Esme's boy, I told him to keep trying until they were friends. After seeing the gleam in her eye when Jasper hugged her, I was certain the child was the way in with my dream woman. But given how infrequently Jasper spoke, Edward was finding it hard to discover something he had in common with the boy.

Maybe today will prove more fruitful. It was once again Saturday morning and time for group, so I was looking forward to seeing Esme and hoping to find a good way to suggest a date. After dressing in my nicest casual attire I went in to check on Edward. "Are you ready Edward?" I asked opening his bedroom door.

Edward was dressed in a cute sundress and butterfly wings, complete with matching sandals. I had been mildly surprised when I first discovered his propensity for cross dressing, but his biological parents were fine with it as long as it was restricted to inside their house. And since I fully admit that I have no clue what I am doing raising a child, I have tried to keep as many of their rules as possible, so I was fine with cross dressing too.

"Almost Dad. I just have to get my Barbie. I'm supposed to bring my favorite toy this week," he answered. "And how many times do I have to ask you to call me Tink? Edward was my dad's name."

Apparently Edward had been Tinkerbell for Halloween one year and the name has stuck with him ever since. I thought it was a very unusual nickname for a boy, but if that was what he wanted to be called, it was alright with me. As for the Barbies, I believed that children should be exposed to all types of toys so as not to stifle their minds. Play is directly correlated to intelligence. Edward liked to play with Barbies and asked for one, so I bought him some. I believe in giving children freedom of expression, so if my son was a tad effeminate, then I would let him be. I was only strict regarding three points: health, safety, and education and everything else was flexible.

"It is a little chilly for that dress Tink. And as cute as you look, you know dresses are for in the house only. Now why don't you pick something else?" I suggested.

"Okay, but can I at least wear the wings?" he asked batting his puppy dog eyes.

I thought about it for a moment, but I was a bit of a sucker, so I caved like always and let the boy wear the wings, explaining why an hour later we were walking into therapy with Edward carrying his Barbie and wearing the wings over his nice vest, button down shirt, and slacks. I gave Edward a kiss on the forehead and reminded him of his assignment to make friends with Jasper, before dropping him off for his individual session. Then I headed off to my own therapy session.

This week my therapist told me that I needed to be more firm with Edward and to stop bribing him so much with gifts. I agreed to her face, but giving in and bribery were really working for me, so I chucked this week's pamphlet in the trash and headed off to my support group. Maybe she would have better advice next week. Edward's session should also have just ended and his therapist should be dropping him off at his grief counseling group. Hopefully he would remember his assignment.

When I opened the door to group, Esme was already sitting in one of the seats, with only the chair on her right still open. I quickly snagged it before one of the other adoptive parents could. Our group was composed mostly of married women, but a few of their husbands also came along and there was one homosexual male couple. Esme and I were the only two single parents in the group.

"Hello," I said to Esme with a huge goofy grin on my face. But before I could make small talk, the group leader, Lisa, called everyone to attention. The parents who were arranging their coffee quickly sat down in the remaining seats, and we began.

Lisa always started by asking us about the assignment our children were given for the week and then asked us to talk about what problems we had during the past week. Often the first topic segued smoothly into the second, because we usually had difficulties with the children that were related to their assignments. Today was no exception.

For his favorite toy, Jasper brought his old history book, which really was no surprise given that he brings it every week. Last week the assignment was to say something nice about your adoptive parent, but he brought his book and refused to speak instead. The week before they were supposed to tell about one of their favorite things to do, and for that, Jasper just held up his book and mimed reading it. He was creative and doggedly stubborn, if silent in public.

So after the woman on Esme's left told the group how happy she was that her foster daughter had brought her Gameboy, Esme explained that she had been arguing with little Jasper for over an hour this morning trying to convince him that a book was not a toy and that he needed to take his new remote controlled toy truck to share. She expected this would happen, so she went out last week and bought him said truck, letting him pick whichever one he wanted. She even told him he could keep the book in his backpack and on his persons at all times, just as long as he brought the truck to share. Needless to say, she had lost and the truck was still in the car.

Lisa, the group leader, commented that a book seemed like an acceptable toy for a boy to bring, brushing off Esme's issue. And then it was my turn.

I was not embarrassed in the least when I answered that my boy had brought his favorite Barbie. In fact I was quite pleased because it was the one I had surprised him with last month: I picked it out myself. I must have figured out this Barbie thing pretty well if this one was his favorite.

But my answer apparently earned me sympathy points with Esme, because she gave me a look like she felt sorry for me. Her kid does not _speak_ and she feels sorry for _me_? That made me slightly concerned and I wondered if she had a problem with my son's toy preference. But she seemed nice enough afterwards when she saw Edward wearing the wings and playing Barbie with her Jasper.

Well Edward was pretending that Barbie was reading Jasper's history book and that she was really into Civil War history. Jasper was tolerating Edward's presence with a stoic look. Edward was trying, I had to admit. So I took the opportunity afforded by the newfound friendship and asked Esme and her nephew out to the park that afternoon for a play-date with me and my new son. She agreed, and we were having a nice time at the park.

After Edward tiered of playing Barbie the History Major, he went to go play on the playground, sans wings, as he did not want to get his wings dirty. Not to mention all the possible damage that could be inflicted upon wings on the playground, which was tantamount to sacrilegious in Edward's book. But little Jasper was shy, reserved, and reluctant to play with the other kids, so instead of joining Edward on the playground, he just sat cross legged on the picnic blanket reading his book while Esme and I talked right in front of him.

"I don't know what to do with him," Esme confessed. "All Jasper wants to do is read about violent wars and watch sports. He hardly ever speaks."

"I bet he is just scared of being with new people. I know you are related, but he is young and may not have remembered you that well. It is scary for kids this young to be in a new place. Didn't you say he lived in Texas before? That is a big transition for a little guy," I said trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about.

"Yes, he is from Texas. But if you are so good with kids, then let's see you win him over," she challenged.

"Fine, I will. Jasper? Can you come here and show me your book?" I asked knowing by now that the book was the key; I had never seen him without it.

Jasper's face lit up with a huge smile in response to my query. I had not seen the kid smile before then, and apparently neither had Esme, because she gasped in surprise. Jasper nodded and came over to me, so I pulled him down on my lap and let him show me the book. I was quite surprised when I saw it up close, because it appeared to be at least twelfth grade material. That was when I first realized that little Jasper was gifted.

My Edward could not read a book that advanced and he was two years older. So I sat there with Jasper on my lap for an hour while he told me all about the Civil War and lynchings in the South. He even read me his favorite passage. That was probably the most Esme had ever heard him speak, because she was just staring at us with her jaw dropped the whole time.

Esme shuddered as the boy read a particularly violence passage, so I asked, "Where did you get this book Jasper?"

"My Dad. We used to read it together every night," he answered.

After hearing that, I assured Esme that it would be alright. Letting Jasper read about violence would not permanently damage him anymore than he had already been damaged by witnessing the deaths of his parents. I figured taking away his link to his past would be more detrimental than letting the reading continue. And history seemed to be a way in with the reclusive little guy, so we quickly bonded. Esme was so amazed that he had opened up to me that she even agreed to more play-dates. I already had one planned for next week.

I was so pleased with Edward for playing cupid that I took him out and bought him a new dress. He chose a bright red one with a full skirt and a white sash, and I picked out a red flower clip for his hair to match. The red really brought out the green in his eyes. We went home and played dress-up for the rest of the evening. He looked so cute I got out my camera and started taking pictures. I may have been out of my league with this parenthood thing, but Edward was an easy kid to raise, most of the time that was. And it would all be worth it if it meant I got the girl.

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><p>Author's Note: I have the majority of this story written, so posting the next chapter is a matter of finishing the revision. But I have two other stories I am working on as well, so which one I work on is a matter of whim. If you like this story and are waiting for the next chapter, then let me know in a review. If no one reviews, I will assume that no one really cares and take my sweet time updating. If I get at least five reviews, I will put aside my other stories and post an update within the week.<p> 


	3. Chapter 2

Since the first play-date went so well, the next Saturday after group ended around noon, Esme and I went to eat in the hospital cafeteria and then took the children to the park. And as we got to know each other, I learned more about her. Her favorite color was white, her favorite flowers were lilies, and she loved going to the local art museum. She was an independent contraction in the field of architecture and she also liked to go garage sale hunting for antique furniture to restore. And since I had a house full of antique furniture that needed restoration, I used her hobby to invite her over to my house.

But she brushed off my invitation by replying, "I'd love too, but I'm really busy with the restoration job at the museum. And I feel bad if I spend too much time working and not enough doing things little Jasper will enjoy. But as soon as I get this job done, I'll take a look at your place, promise."

When she said this, she reminded me of my earlier conclusion that the children were my way in with this dream woman of mine. So I switched my line of query to Jasper. She had Jasper in an after school program here in the city, but she frequently had to work on Sundays, and had to drag him along with her. Luckily he was a quiet child who could sit for hours silently reading his book while she worked.

I had a similar problem, as I had Edward in an after school program, but frequently had to work nights. Luckily my best friend Charlie Swan, the police chief, had a daughter Edward's age and agreed to watch him most nights. Edward did not mind spending the night at the Chief's house, because Edward liked playing with his daughter Bella. Those two could spend hours playing Barbies and dress-up.

But when Charlie was not available, I had to resort to asking my neighbor, Mrs. Johansson, to watch him. Mrs. Johansson had three children, including a boy, Henry, Edward's age. But Henry played a bit rough and loved sports, so Edward did not get along well with him. And the two other children were quite a bit younger, so Edward did not like spending time over there.

After I confided all of this in Esme, she changed the subject. "Oh that reminds me: what are you guys doing for Columbus Day on Monday?" she asked.

"I have to work, and Charlie is out of town, so Edward will have to go over to the Johansson's. He was crying when I told him: he really hates it over there, but I have no where else to leave him. My only family left lives in Alaska."

I had four cousins in Alaska, Tanya, Kate, Irina, and Eleazar. They were all quite a bit older than me, although not a one looked a day older than thirty-five. I went to live with them when my parents died in a car crash during my junior year of high school. Most of the towns-folk found it odd that the three sisters never married and the brother looked nothing like the others, although he at least married. But while living with them, I quickly learned the reasons behind their quirks: the three sisters were cougars and had a different young man over every night. Each. And cousin Eleazar was adopted, so he was not really related to the others.

My cousins had a few other quirks, like they never ate in front of me and they were not really related to me either. They never ate in front of me because they were on some special life-prolonging diet, which I had to keep secret because they did not want anyone to know. Their special diet must be why they have managed to live so long, while keeping their youthful appearances; I will have to ask their secret when I get old.

They were not biologically related to me, but Eleazar and his wife had adopted my father after my grandparents died in a hiking accident: they were caught under an avalanche of rocks and boulders after a cliff collapsed on top on them. My father was only three at the time and never remembered the incident, although he must have been there to witness it, as Kate had found him at the scene and was the one to report the accident to the authorities.

And although cousin Eleazar had raised my father, he looked much too young to have done so. He did not even look old enough to be my father, though he certainly was the oldest member of the group. And since he looked so young, he did not want to be called Grandpa, even though he was the closest thing to one I had ever known. So I had always referred to them as my cousins.

My Alaskan cousins came down to meet Edward shortly after his adoption, but cousin Tanya came on too strong and scared him. I planned on taking him up north this coming holiday season so that he could get to know them better. But there was little they could do to help me with his day to day care when they lived so far away.

"Oh, that's too bad," Esme replied. "I have the day off and was going to take Jasper to the mall and see a movie… Hey, why don't you let Edward come with us? We are just going to stay in Port Angeles, and he gets along fine with Jasper."

"That's a great idea! And maybe I can return the favor and watch Jasper next time you have to work on a Sunday," I suggested.

"That would be great! Actually, I have to work the Sunday a week from tomorrow. Are you free?"

"Yes," I answered. Even if I had not been, I would have rearranged my schedule for her. "I'm not even on call that day or anything. Now that I have Edward, they have been giving me less night and weekend shifts."

Edward was ecstatic to learn that he would get to spend the day with Jasper instead of Henry, and I dropped him off at Esme's house bright and early Monday morning before heading over to the hospital. After work, I went straight back to her place, where she had dinner prepared. I really missed home cooking, and Esme was a wonderful cook.

But Esme's place was small: she only had a two bedroom apartment, so Jasper's bed was in her office. And now that her office was commandeered, her work stuff was scattered around wherever it could fit. She had squeezed her desk and computer into her bedroom, her bookcases into the living room, and her filing cabinets still lined the rear wall in Jasper's room.

I had the opposite problem at my house: I had been given an old house by Cousin Eleazar, and it was huge. He said it had been his house before he and his wife had moved back to Alaska to be with his sisters, but it looked much too old for this to have been the case. I had not had the time or necessity to fix the entire place up when I moved here after starting my residency, so I had only had minor repairs done to the first floor. Edward and I were living solely on the first floor, with the second floor boarded off, as it needed a lot of repairs and was still dangerous for children.

After dinner Edward and Jasper went into Jasper's room to play Legos. Edward did not want to play, but I pointed out how he could make a house and begged him to entertain Jasper for a little while. Edward liked Jasper, so once I promised to buy him another dress if he helped me out, he readily agreed. And while the kids were occupied, Esme and I stayed in the dining room to talk.

"Listen Carlisle, I need to talk to you about something that happened at the mall," Esme began once the kids were out of earshot.

"Okay, I'm listening."

"Well, Halloween is coming up, and the kids wanted to go into The Disney Store to look at costumes. I would have bought both of them costumes right then, and saved myself the trip back to the mall, but for the one Edward picked. I didn't want to get it without your permission.

"Jasper went over to the Pirates costumes and picked Jack Sparrow. I would have thought Edward would have gone with him and also picked a pirate or Buzz Lightyear or something. I know he loves Pirates of the Caribbean: he told me so this morning. But instead he was looking in the little girl's section and I caught him staring at the Belle costume. You know, from Beauty and the Beast?"

"Yes, the yellow gown?" I had seen Edward watching that movie enough to recognize the signature golden gown.

"Yes! That's the one. Anyway, he was staring at it when I asked him what was wrong, and why he wasn't with Jasper looking at the boy's costumes. And…and he said he wanted the Belle costume, not a boy's costume. I didn't know what to say, because I didn't know how you would feel about me buying your son a dress. So I told him we would come back another time, closer to Halloween, to get costumes. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to go back to the store and buy him the Belle costume. He was Ariel last year. You know the one with the poufy white gown?"

"His mom let him have a gown last year?"

"Yes. I have tried to keep as much continuity in his life as possible. His mother always let him have a dress for Halloween, so I am going to let him have one this year as well. I even have some pictures of him from before the adoption. There are pictures of him as Tinker Bell, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, and Pocahontas."

"Why did she get him dresses and not boy's costumes?"

"Well, she got him boy's costumes the first two years: I have a picture of him as a pumpkin and as a clown. But the boy is fem and wanted a dress, so she let him."

"Wow. And you are okay with all of this?"

"I don't mind. Are you okay with it? Because if you have a problem with cross dressing, then I'm afraid we are not going to be able to continue to see each other."

"Oh no, I don't have a problem with it, but I am surprised that someone would let their boy wear dresses. But the way Edward was drooling over that dress made me really want to get it for him: it just broke my heart to make him put it back. Besides, Edward would make an adorable Belle. Maybe I can comb his hair and add a tiara."

"He has a set of tiaras on his dresser and a closet full of dresses in his room, if you would like to see. His mother used to let him dress up as long as he was at home, but made him wear pants in public. I have kept the same rule."

"Well, that seems reasonable. I was mostly worried about him being made fun of by the other children."

"Well yes, he does get picked on a lot, but the other children don't know about the dresses yet."

After that she told me about the rest of their trip to the mall and the children's movie they had seen. Then I pulled a black and white photo of my house out of my wallet, which cousin Eleazar had given me from when the house was new. I had put it in my wallet just this morning specifically for the purpose of asking her opinion on it.

"Well, this photo is very old. It looks like one from the mid eighteen hundreds. And the style of house agrees with that age: this style was popular in the mid-eighteen hundreds. And you say it has been in your family all of that time?" she asked.

"Well it was cousin Eleazar's before mine. And he said someone in the family had built it with their own hands, but he never told me anymore details than that," I answered.

"That's amazing. And you saved all of the original furniture?"

"Yes. I moved everything I couldn't use to the second floor or the garage. But I did not throw anything out. You should come over so I can show you," I said hoping once more that my house might lure her into spending time with me.

"Sounds like you need to hire me full-time," she joked.

"Maybe I will. I have plenty of money to fix the place up; I just have not had the time. I try to spend all of my free time with Edward," I said trying to sound extra devoted to the little guy. Sure it was true, but I was really playing the single dad card in order to get her to like me.

"Well once I finish that project for the museum, I will come over and give you an estimate," Esme said as Jasper and Edward came running into the room.

"What's for dessert?" Edward asked excitedly.

"Pie?" Jasper added in. That was the first word I had ever heard Jasper udder that was not history related, besides that time I heard him screaming 'no' at his aunt at the top of his lungs during an epic melt down before group a month ago. So I figured pie must be his favorite, and made a note to pick up a pie for when I have them over.

"Sorry Jazz. We only have ice cream for dessert tonight. Do you want some vanilla?" Esme asked.

Jasper nodded happily, and Edward shouted, "Yay! Ice cream!"

So I helped Esme dish out ice cream for four. After we ate, Esme combed Edward's unruly hair and added a ribbon, tied with a bow on top. I took that as an indication that she really was fine with the cross dressing, and suggested that we play a board game. Esme really was the perfect woman and we all had a great time playing. Jasper must have been feeling particularly verbose, because he managed to say about another dozen words while we played.

But after the game, Esme said it was getting late, so Edward and I went home. As soon we were in the car, I congratulated Edward on a job well done and promised to take him to the store to get that new dress as soon as I got the chance. At the rate we were going, I was going to have to get Edward a walk-in closet to hold all of his dresses. Screw my therapist; bribery works.

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><p>Author's Note: Reviews anyone?<p> 


	4. Chapter 3

Esme's acceptance of Edward made my day, as I was extremely into her and wanted to take our relationship to the next level. So the following Saturday, I was really looking forward to our weekly trip to the park. I ran into Esme Saturday morning coming into the hospital for group. She had Jasper with her, while I had Edward with me, and Jasper was crying.

"What's wrong little man?" I asked bending down to him.

He threw himself into my arms and continued to cry, so I picked him up. "Esme won't let me play baseball. I want to play," he sobbed into my ear as I stroked his hair. This must have been the longest speech I had ever heard from him, besides that day at the park.

"Why can't he play baseball?" I leaned over and whispered into Esme's ear.

"He has a birth defect. I don't want him getting hurt and making it worse," she replied.

"Really? He looks normal to me." But then again, so does Edward.

"Yeah, he has something called Guevedoche, but I don't want everyone to know. It is kind of personal, if you know what I mean."

"Well that is a bit of a coincidence: I've just started classes to specialize in intersexed disorders," I replied.

When Esme failed to respond but just stood there with her mouth hanging open, I added, "I am a doctor, remember? And when little Edward came into my life with his birth defect, I decided to specialize in intersexed disorders. So I'm familiar with the condition, although I can't say that I've ever had a patient with it. We can be a little late to group; how about I pull his charts and do a quick exam? If everything checks out, you let him play. If not, I'll help you explain why to him."

"Deal, but why did adopting Edward lead you to specialize in intersexed disorders?" she asked me.

"He was born with a micropenis and a glanular hypospadias," I whispered, leaning in closer. "It is probably due to unusual hormone levels during pregnancy. There are not many treatment options, so I got really into the field researching his condition. It is a little hard finding classes in the subject out here, but I watch lectures online and drive into Seattle once a month to attend seminars. Plus journal articles can be read anywhere. Anyway, I would be more than happy to take a look at him and it will give me hands on practice that is hard to come by back in Forks, but let's drop Edward off first."

Esme was unfamiliar with Edward's type of birth defects, so I filled her in on the basics as the four of us started walking down the hall to drop Edward off.

"Oh my! That sounds horrible, is Edward going to be okay?"

"It really is not as bad as it sounds. He has an increased risk of urinary tract infections, but aside from a few extra infections a year, he's fine," I reassured her as we reached the door of Edward's therapist.

Five minutes later found Esme, Jasper, and myself in an exam room with Jasper's charts. Luckily, he was a patient here, so it was easy to pull his file, and I was able to get privileges to use an exam room. I did not see anything obvious in his records, except for the Guevedoche, that was. Guevedoche was a condition in which the testes failed to descend until puberty, due to a genetically determined hormone deficiency. It was relatively common in certain places, although it was extremely rare in white males, like Jasper.

I quickly read through the notes on his condition, but failed to find any reason why Jasper would not be able to play baseball, so I proceeded with the physical exam. I lifted up Jasper's shirt and lowered his waist band an inch. I tapped along his abdomen, checking for any signs of a hernia, which was the major concern with these patients. I found none, so I did a quick check of his vitals, which were all fine. Then I pulled his shirt back down before giving him a happy face sticker and giving Esme my verdict.

"He is perfectly fine. In fact, he is good to go for baseball."

"Yay! Thank you Uncle Carlisle!" Jasper exclaimed jumping into my arms.

I was a little surprised by the sudden show of affection from the usually stoic child, but I quickly returned Jasper's hug and shifted him into my left arm so that I could continue to hold him while I talked to his aunt. I wonder if I could bribe him to play cupid without Esme finding out. Maybe I would tell him how much I liked being called uncle when I have him and Edward alone tomorrow.

"Seriously? He won't aggravate his condition by playing?" Esme asked, smiling at the little boy in my arms.

"The Guevedoche should not interfere with baseball. Why don't we take him after group and sign him up? I bet he has a powerful arm. And I can come to the games if you are worried. That way a doctor familiar with his condition will be present in the unlikely event that anything does go wrong," I suggested as a way to worm myself further into their lives and spend more time with the woman of my dreams.

"Are you sure? He is really fine?" Esme asked with concern, completely ignoring my offer to attend the games. I will have to bring it up again at a later date, so that I do not sound too desperate.

"He's fine, trust me. Guevedoche is not even that big of a deal: once he turns twelve his testosterone levels will increase and then he will be perfectly normal," I said as I thought how puberty would not cure Edward's condition: he will always have the micropenis and hypospadias unless he has surgery.

"Thanks Carlisle, I really owe you one," Esme replied.

So I carried Jasper back down the hall to therapy, and Esme and I went off to our own individual therapy sessions before group. Afterwards we went to sign Jasper up for little league. I tried to get Edward to sign up, even though I hate baseball, just to have another excuse to spend time with Esme: I had still not managed to get her to take me up on my offer to come just for Jasper.

But Edward refused, as he hates baseball. He did however mention a desire to take ballet. So I feigned ignorance of all things ballet related and asked Esme to help me. She agreed to help me find a studio in the area and take us leotard shopping. So both of the boys were happy and I got my excuse to spend the rest of the day with Esme: we agreed to go shopping right after signing Jasper up for baseball.

When Edward and I were alone in the car on the way to the store, I explained what I needed him to do while we were out, "Tink, I need you to ask Esme to come watch your ballet classes. Can you do that for me?"

"Why Dad?" he asked from the passenger seat, not understanding why I would want someone we barely knew going with us.

"Because I like her. If everything goes well, I am going to ask her to be my girlfriend."

"Ew!" Edward exclaimed covering his ears like I had said something inappropriate.

"Listen little guy, this is important," I said removing his hands from his ears. Good thing we were currently stopped at a red light. "Getting a girlfriend is the first step in getting you a stepmom. Would you like a stepmom to comb your hair and iron your dresses and do whatever else it is that moms do?"

"A mom would be nice," he replied innocently. "But I don't want you to have to have a girlfriend. That's just gross! Yuck!"

"I don't mind taking one for the team. I'll deal with the girlfriend, while you get all the benefits of a stepmom. But I need you to help me keep her around. Just ask her to attend your ballet classes and use your puppy-dog eyes and she will surely agree."

"But I don't know what to say," he admitted looking down at his hands in his lap.

"Just play on her sympathy like, 'Ms. Esme, all the other children have a mom to take them to ballet, but mine died. Will you go with me?'"

"What's wrong with you taking me?" he asked.

"I _am_ going to take you Tink! That's not the point. The point is I want her to go with us so that I can spend more time with her. I need to spend more time with her in order to ask her out!"

Edward shuttered with disgust at the last part, but he recovered and asked, "So if Esme asks, why would just you taking me not be good enough?"

"Because all of the other kids have mothers taking them. You are going to be the only boy there and the only kid without a mother to watch. Play up the orphan bit and she will definitely cave. And we can pick up that dress I owe you while we are out."

Edward agreed and we spent the rest of the drive running possible lines back and forth. All that preparation really paid off, because Edward was extremely convincing when we got to the store. Esme agreed to drive out to Forks once a week to attend his ballet classes, meaning more Esme time for me.

But that was still not enough for me, so I decided not to wait for Esme to invite me to Jasper's games and just show up. I figure that it will come across as a show of support for Jasper. I hope it will not be too obvious, given that I am a doctor, and Jasper does have the birth defect. I could feign concern over the condition, or desire to show support to a differently abled child. Either way, it would mean more Esme time for me, which was something I was quickly becoming addicted to.

When we finished picking up a leotard, tights, tutu, and ballet slippers for Edward, I suggested we go next door to pick up baseball supplies for Jasper. I helped Esme pick out a batting helmet, glove, and a pair of cleats for the little guy. After that she said they had to get going, so I took Edward over to the dress shop and let him pick out whatever he wanted. This time he picked a bright yellow sundress with a flower pattern and I found a yellow headband to match.

By the time we finished shopping, it was already late, so I bought fast food, which we ate in the car on the way home. When we arrived home, I gave Edward a bath, put him to bed in his Cinderella nightgown, and told him a story. It was a story I made up on the spot about a little prince named Edward, whose father married a beautiful woman named Esme. Esme had a son named Prince Jasper, and the happy royal family of four lived happily ever after.

"Can't Prince Edward have fairy wings and fly and save the magical twinkle-flower?" Edward asked when I finished my story.

"Yes, did I forget that part? Prince Edward had magical fairy wings because he was a pixie who would go on to have a number of magical adventures, including saving the tinkle-flower."

"Twinkle-flower," Edward corrected.

"Right, twinkle-flower. But most importantly, he had a mother waiting at home for him with a fresh plate of cookies when he got back from saving the magical kingdom," I finished hoping I could turn the story into reality.

"Night Daddy."

"Good night my Tink," I said before kissing his forehead and turning off the lights.

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><p>Author's Note: Please review. Pretty please?<p> 


	5. Chapter 4

Author's Note: Carlisle comes from a heterosexist background, although he realizes that Edward may be a homosexual, so he is trying to be accommodating of that fact. He is however still going to make mistakes. And in this chapter you will notice him say something in front of the children that can be construed as anti-bisexual, which will become important later on when one of those children turns out to be bisexual. No offense to bisexuals is intended, it is just part of the story line.

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><p>I was getting up the nerve to ask Esme to be my girlfriend, instead of just seeing me casually with the kids. We had been on play-dates and shopping-dates, but with two kids tagging along, there was never any kissing. And I really wanted there to be kissing and to know how those full lips felt beneath mine. But before I ask her out on a kid-free date, I wanted to prove that I too could handle two kids for the day. So I was really looking forward to the following day, when I would watch Jasper while Esme went to work for the day.<p>

It was an unseasonably warm sunny fall day, so after picking up Jasper, I took the boys to our usual park in Port Angeles. Edward ran off to play immediately, while Jasper cuddled into my arms as we sat on our blanket on the grass. I was just about to suggest that he read to me from his history book, when Jack and Alan from group passed by with their adopted daughter Sarah.

"Hey Carlisle," Jack greeted me and Alan waved from his side. They were the only gay couple in group, but Alan worked long hours, so Jack usual came on his own. He was an artist, so he was also the stay at home dad in the family.

"Hello Jack, Allen, and Sarah. You remember Esme's nephew Jasper?" I asked indicating the boy in my arms, who waved.

"Yes. Hello Jasper. Where are Esme and Edward?" Jack asked in response.

"Esme is at work, so I'm babysitting for her. Edward is over on the swings. I'll call him over to say hello," I said before calling Edward's name and motioning him over.

"Yes Dad?" Edward asked as he ran over.

"Edward, you know Sarah and her dad Jack from group. This is Jack's husband Alan."

"Jack's husband?" Edward asked confused. I had only seen Alan once before, so Edward must not have noticed him.

"Yes, Jack and Allen are married. Sometimes two men fall in love and get married," I replied trying to make sure I did not put a negative connotation on it, as I considered it a possibility that Edward might turn out to be homosexual. If he was, it was fine by me, but he was just a boy and did not seem to be aware of the concept.

"Carlisle, you should teach your boy not to stare, it's rude," Alan said as Edward continued to stare at the couple with his jaw dropped. At least he was not drooling.

"Now Alan, this is the boy I was telling you about. You know, the one I said reminded me of you because he brought his Barbie to share the other week. He was so cute skipping through the halls with his fairy wings. Your mother showed me all those pictures of you with your dolls when you were little. I always preferred trucks myself," Jack said holding onto Alan's arm.

"Oh," Alan replied clearly thinking about something.

"So, if you are married, does that mean you can kiss each other?" Edward asked excitedly, finally raising his jaw to a more appropriate level for a conversation.

"Yes, want to see?" Jack asked good naturedly.

"Definitely!" Edward exclaimed with a wide smile on his face.

"Jack, what are you up too?" Alan asked as Jack leaned in for a soft kiss on the lips. Jack pulled back a bit and winked at Edward, who was clearly captivated by the sight, before deepening the kiss.

"Ew Dad! Gross. You two are embarrassing me," Sarah said hiding her face and trying not to look at her adoptive parents kissing.

"Wow!" Edward exclaimed clearly excited. "I always thought that boys had to kiss girls when they grew up, which is totally gross!"

"You can marry whoever you want when you grow up, Edward," I replied and Alan and Jack just chuckled.

"Well not exactly, it depends on the State. We had to go to Vermont to get married," Jack told us.

"And we were engaged a long time before that…" Alan started, but Jack cut him off, whispering something in his ear. Alan nodded and continued on a different subject. "We adopted Sarah here four years ago, making our family complete."

"That's wonderful. I'm glad you two found each other. You make a wonderful couple," I replied, grateful for the change in topic. I knew that life as a homosexual was not all roses and sunshine, but Edward was only eight and he did not need to be exposed to the unpleasantries just yet.

"Sarah, why don't you go play with the boys while the grown-ups talk?" Jack asked his daughter.

"Okay Dad. Want to play Edward?" Sarah asked reaching out her hand to him. Edward nodded and took her hand, before the two turned to look at Jasper, who was still sitting quietly in my lap. "Are you coming Jasper?"

Jasper just shook his head, so I spoke for him, "He does not feel like it right now. Why don't you two run along?"

"Okay Dad," Edward said before running off to the swings and pulling Sarah along behind him.

"I wanted to talk to you in private," Jack told me, indicating Jasper with a nod of his head.

"Sorry guys, but Jasper won't leave me to play with the other kids," I replied, knowing that this was the truth from all of the other play-dates I had been on with him and Esme. "But Esme always just talks in front of him. What is on your mind?" I patted the blanket, indicating that they should sit down.

"Well I have been noticing Edward in group. Have you considered that he may be like us?" Jack asked me and he pulled Alan down next to him on the blanket.

"Yes, I've thought about it. And I want to thank you for your little demonstration. I've been meaning to sit down and talk to him about it, but I just did not know how to bring it up or how much to say," I admitted twirling my fingers in Jasper's curls, as the boy sat silently in my arms.

"Well if you ever need any help, I'd be happy to lend an ear," he replied sympathetically.

"If you don't mind me asking, when did you two know you were interested in other men?"

"I didn't know until college- I was a late bloomer. But Alan here always knew, right Alan?" Jack asked looking at his husband.

"Well I always knew I was different from the other little boys. I always liked to comb my hair and add a bow. And I played with dolls and all my friend were girls. But it was not until junior high that I realized that I had a crush on another boy. I was really confused at first, but my mom noticed something was wrong and got me to admit what was bothering me. She had already suspected as much and was really great about the whole thing," Alan answered.

"That's wonderful. I wish everyone was so understanding. Edward probably would not get so many looks when people see him with his Barbies…"

"It is getting better every year. By the time he grows up, the world may be a more tolerant place," Jack replied.

"Hey, you never know that he will have to deal with that. Just because I was effeminate and love Jack, does not mean that Edward will be the same. I had two other male friends that I used to play dolls with when I was little. Neither of them turned out to be gay, but one of them did turn out to be a cross-dresser," Alan revealed.

"You are right: I don't know and I won't know for a while yet. But I would like to raise Edward in a very homosexual friendly environment, in case he does turn out to be one. Can you two give me any advice on that?" I asked hopefully.

"Sure. For starters, always try to keep it gender neutral when referring to dating and marriage. My parents always spoke about future girlfriends and wives with me and it really made me feel inferior," Jack answered.

"Well you do not want to assume he is either, in case he is not. Just try to mention both ways equally whenever the subject comes up," Alan added.

"What about cross-dressing in public?" I asked. "Edward is always trying to get me to let him go out in a dress.

"I would not recommend it. There are a lot of mean people out there and it is better that he is not exposed to it any earlier than necessary," Alan replied cringing. I could only imagine what he had been through growing up to make him so weary.

"But you don't want to discourage the behavior either. Maybe let him wear a dress in front of some of your close friends and family," Jack suggested.

"That's a great idea. You two have been way more helpful today than my therapist ever is," I admitted.

"Mine is not that great either," Jack replied.

"That's why I stopped going," Alan added.

After that the three of us filled the next hour with small talk. I told them about my work and they told me about theirs. Alan worked at a law firm, explaining why he was always so busy. Jack, the artist, invited me to a gallery featuring some of his work later this month. It sounded like a good date idea to me, so I stored it away in the back of my mind as a place to take Esme. Plus having a couple of gay friends sounded like a good idea to me and they had certainly helped me with a lot of my concerns regarding Edward.

But by then it was eleven, so I excused myself after exchanging phone numbers, and took the boys home to prepare lunch. Lunch went smoothly, followed by Jasper and Edward taking off to play Legos together. They had played so well at Esme's house with the toy that I had gone out and purchased a set for Edward.

But after half and hour, Jasper and Edward tired of playing Legos, forcing me to come up with another activity they both would enjoy. Edward wanted to play dress-up, but the look Jasper gave at that suggestion told me it was not going to fly. Then Edward suggested Barbies and got a similar response. And when Jasper silently shot down Edward's baby doll suggestion, Edward lost it, "I give up Dad! He doesn't want to play anything, but he never comes up with any suggestions himself!"

"Calm down Edward, I'm sure we can figure this out. Jasper, what do you want to play?" I asked.

After Edward's outburst Jasper looked about ready to cry, but he just bit his lower lip and pointed to the bookshelf in the living room: it was full of old classics that had come with the house. I had left the bookshelf there partly for decoration and partly because I did not want to move it. All of my books were in my office, while all of Edward's were in his room, so neither of us had ever touched this shelf.

"You want to read one of those old books?" I asked Jasper and he nodded in response. "Sure, whichever one you want. And Edward you can get a book from your room to read," I said knowing that all of these books were too advanced for my boy.

"Fine," Edward grumbled before heading down the hall to his room, while Jasper went over to the bookcase and picked out an original edition copy of Dracula.

"You have a lot of nice books," Jasper said smiling as he sat down to read.

"Thank you Jasper," I replied as Edward returned with one of his books: Tinkering Tink.

After half an hour, Jasper was just getting into his book, while Edward was finishing his. "Why don't we talk while Jasper reads?" I suggested as a way to keep the peace. Well that and I wanted to know what Edward thought about Alan and Jack.

"Sure Daddy, what do you want to talk about?" he asked putting his book on the coffee table before walking over to where I was seated on the couch and sitting next to me.

"What did you think of Jack and Alan?" I asked.

"Jack seemed nice, but I was really scared of Alan at first."

"Because he got mad when he caught you staring?" I asked for clarification.

"Yeah. I wasn't trying to stare, honest," he answered in a shaky voice, looking like he might cry.

"I know son and you are not in trouble. Some people are mean to men who are married to other men, which is not right. Alan is just used to getting bad reactions from people. Once he realized that you were just surprised, he wasn't mad anymore."

"Yeah. I can't believe they kissed in front of me! That was pretty cool. Do you think you will find a husband too?" he asked me curiously.

"Edward, some men like other men, like Alan and Jack, but some like women, like your biological father and me. Men come both ways and neither way is wrong or right, but most men don't switch. I like women and I was hoping to date Esme, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember," he answered dejectedly.

"You can date whichever kind of person you want when you grow up. You know that I will be proud of you and that you will always be my son, no matter what, right Edward?"

"Yeah, I know. It's just kissing girls is really gross."

"I know you think so Tink, so I'll try not to kiss Esme too much in front of you."

"Okay."

"And if you ever want to talk to me about this type of thing, I'm all ears."

"Okay Dad."

"Do you have any questions for me?" I asked and waited for a reply. Edward thought about it for a few moments before shaking his head. "Okay, why don't you go play in your room? But feel free to ask me anything anytime."

"Can I play dress-up?" he asked eagerly.

"Sure can Tink," I answered and he skipped off to his room to change.

Once Edward was out of the room, I realized I was alone with Jasper, who had overheard a lot today.

"Jasper, can I talk to you too for a minute?" I asked, interrupting his reading.

"Sure Uncle Carlisle," he answered, marking his place in his book and looking up at me.

I patted the seat next to me and waited for Jasper to join me before I began. "Do you have any questions about what we were talking about today?"

"Not really. Esme's friend from work, Charles, and his boyfriend are gay too," he said.

"Oh. I haven't met Charles yet," I said thinking about the fact that I had not met any of Esme's friends.

"Charles got a job in Seattle, so he has not been around for a while. But my aunt said that they went to University together," Jasper added, giving too much information, like all children. "I don't mind that Edward is gay."

"We don't know yet whether or not he is gay," I clarified. "When he is older he will start liking girls or boys and then we will know, but like you, he is just a child."

"Sure."

"And I'm glad that homosexuality does not bother you, but I don't want you suggesting to Edward that he is gay. I want to let him come to that conclusion on his own," I said wondering if I was talking over Jasper's head or not. Esme always offends him by talking down to him, but this was a very grown-up conversation and I did not know if he could follow it.

"Okay, keep my mouth closed. That should be easy enough," he said smiling at me.

"Well if you don't have any questions, then you can go ahead and continue reading," I said ruffling his hair.


	6. Chapter 5

Author's Note: I would like to thank my wonderful prereader, Master of the Boot!

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><p>While the boys were entertaining themselves, I made dinner. I was trying to impress Esme with my cooking along with my excellent child watching abilities, before I ask her out on that date. Esme arrived just as I was removing the chicken from the oven, and the four of us sat down and had a nice dinner. Afterwards, Edward brought out his Barbies, while Jasper climbed into my lap with his new book.<p>

"How do you do that?" Esme asked.

"Do what?"

"Get Jasper to open up to you like that? He never lets me hug him, or climbs in my lap, or anything. You are like the Jasper whisperer."

"Hmm, well he was in my arms earlier today. I just thought that he was normally this way. Besides, Edward climbs into your lap."

"Edward is easier to win over. But no, Jasper never is like that. He is always a lot of work: whining, crying, or off in the corner by himself. I can never get him to interact properly with me. He will sometimes play pirates, cars, or sports. But, other than that, he just sits and reads."

"Jasper was talking to me earlier in full sentences and everything," I bragged.

"Wow, I can't believe that. He rarely talks to me."

"But at least with Jasper you knew him before the adoption, so you know his history. I know almost nothing about Edward's life before his parents died," I replied, trying to change the topic, so as not to dwell on my success today. "When did Jasper start his fascination with historical books?"

"Well, he started reading around the age of three, but his father used to read history books to him before that."

"Three? That is ridiculously early. When did he start talking?" I asked, thinking that reading and talking were linked. If he had started reading early, he also must have started talking early.

"I don't remember. I remember when his older brother, Peter, said his first word, because I was there for that," she replied.

"See, I have no clue what Edward's first word was or when he said it. What did Peter say?"

"'Hi.' It was mother's day, and Peter was three months old. I was playing with him as he sat in his bouncer. My sister walked in, and Peter said, 'Hi.'"

"At only three months old?" I asked incredulously.

"Yep. We were all shocked, but he repeated it, so we were sure that is what he said. And then he said it so much that we got tired of hearing it and couldn't make him stop," she reminisced.

"That's a cute story. Do you know what Jasper's first word was?"

"No. But the first word I ever heard him say was red."

"Red?" I asked thinking that this was an unusual first word.

"Yep. I was over at my sister Stephanie's house, and Peter was a very high maintenance five year old. Steph and I were trying to talk, but Peter kept interrupting, while Jasper played in the corner with his trucks."

"If Peter was five, wouldn't that make Jasper a baby, and too young for trucks?" I interrupted.

"They were stuffed trucks, and Jasper had just turned one."

"Was one of them red?"

"No, they were blue and yellow. If you would just let me finish the story…"

"Okay, go ahead."

"Peter was learning his colors in Kindergarten. So Steph had bought Peter a set of colored blocks. And to get Peter to give us a break, she asked him to take the blocks and teach Jasper his colors. She did not think that the baby would learn his colors so young, but that it would keep Peter out of her hair for half an hour.

"So Peter poured out his blocks in front of Jasper, picked up the blue one, and said, 'Say blue Jasper, say blue.' Jasper didn't say blue. He didn't say anything: he completely ignored his brother and continued to play with his trucks. But Peter was stubborn and persistent if nothing else, so he continued on for at least half an hour like that.

"Finally Peter got fed up and grabbed Jasper's truck out of his hands, and shoved the blue block right in his face, and yelled at him to say blue. Jasper crawled over to the red block, picked it up, threw it at Peter, and yelled, 'Red!' Then he did the same with the orange, yellow, purple, and orange blocks," she finished.

"Poor Peter: Jasper has quite an arm on him."

"It was really hard to feel sorry for Peter, because after Jasper threw the orange block and sat back down with his trucks, Peter came back over to tattle. He complained, 'Mom, Jasper won't say blue!'" Esme replied and we both laughed.

"Okay, but how did he know his colors if he was only one?" I asked as the laughter died down.

"He must have picked it up when Steph was teaching Peter. Jasper was always a quick learner and easy to teach, but impossible to get to interact with other children. I remember when he was three, my sister called me crying because he wouldn't play with any of the other kids at preschool. She thought that he was antisocial or something."

"See, that's the type of thing I would like to know about Edward. But I can't believe that little Jasper here could ever be accused of being antisocial: he is so sweet," I replied giving him a squeeze.

"He used to play with red ants instead of the other children. And I remember that whenever I would babysit him and Peter, Peter would want to play, but Jasper would just run away. But Peter was bigger and he would just follow him and keep pestering him to play. So, Jasper would climb up something to get out of his reach."

"Climb up something, like a tree?"

"No, not a tree: Peter could climb a tree. Jasper always climbed up things that Peter couldn't. Jasper would climb up the closet, and sit in the shelf above, and throw the shoes down at Peter if he tried to follow. Or if they were outside in their yard, Jasper would climb up the swing-set, the fence, or the signpost on the corner."

"So where is Peter? Why didn't he come to live with you too?" I asked.

"With their dad's parents. The grandparents live in the same city in Texas, so it was less of a transition for Peter: he did not even have to change schools," Esme replied with a sigh.

"So why didn't they take Jasper as well?" I asked, hoping I was not going too far. But I wanted this information, and I thought now was as good a time as any to ask.

"Jasper has more problems than Peter. Peter is four years older and could better handle his parents' deaths. And the grandparents are old and did not have the energy to take care of Jasper. Both children were there when their mother was ran over, but only Jasper was home when his dad committed suicide, because Peter was at the grandparents. Andrew had begged Jasper to go as well, but he wouldn't leave his father.

"I think Andrew put it off for weeks trying to find a time when neither boy was with him. But after Steph's death, Jasper refused to go to Kindergarten, the grandparents', or the sitter's, so Andrew finally just waited until he was asleep and did it. The grandparents were supposed to stop by first thing in the morning and drop Peter off, so he probably thought they would find the body before Jasper even woke up. But instead, Jasper woke up in the middle of the night and found the body. Jasper called nine-one-one.

"After that, Jasper became even more reclusive: much more so than he is now. Therapy has really helped him open up. So you can imagine how difficult dealing with him was for two elderly people. They called me and asked me to take him. I flew down the next day and he has been with me ever since," Esme finished.

"That's horrible. Not that you took him, but what he has been through. I admire that you have sacrificed part of your life to take care of him," I said looking into her eyes.

"And I admire that you did the same for Edward and he is not even related to you. You did not even know him before he was admitted to your hospital," she replied returning my gaze.

I was about to lean in and kiss her, but the moment passed. "What is he reading?" Esme asked noticing for the first time what was in Jasper's hands. She had probably assumed he was reading his history book again.

"He found an old copy of Dracula on the bookshelf in the living room and picked it up. I didn't even know it was there, because I have never touched those books: they came with the house," I replied twirling a strand of Jasper's curly golden hair in my fingers.

"Dracula! You let my six year old read Dracula?" she asked over-reacting.

"Yes. Should I not have let him read it? I'm sorry," I replied sheepishly. I really was not good with this parenting thing.

"No, you should not have let him read it: he'll get nightmares," she replied. "Jasper please put that book back and read your history one."

"No!" Jasper shouted, curling protectively over the book and further into my arms.

"See what I mean about him being a lot of work?" Esme asked. "I'm never going to get that book away from him now. But if it were Edward, he would hand over the book. I bet Edward would not even want to read a book like that."

"Jasper was perfectly behaved for me all day; they both were."

"So what did you three do today anyway?"

"We just went to the park. We ran into Alan and Jack from group and they had Sarah with them."

"Oh, how did that go?"

"Really well. Jack invited us to one of his art things and it was the first time Edward saw a homosexual couple."

"Really?"

"Yeah, he seemed excited by the idea. I think it would be good to have a gay couple for him to look up to as role models, in case…"

"That's a good idea. My good friend Charles is gay too, but I haven't seen him since he got that contact in Seattle six months ago," she replied. "He used to come over and Jasper would refuse to even say hello. I was so embarrassed."

"Jasper waved to Alan and Jack, but didn't speak. The trick with him is to read his history book so that you know what he is talking about. Oh, that reminds me: I got you something little guy," I said to Jasper as I stood up with him still in my arms.

"What?" he asked shyly.

"A book. Your book is getting kind of old and worn out. I was at the bookstore, and I found the same one, but in hard cover. Now, if you want to keep your old one that is fine, but now you can have two. And I found some other books you might like," I replied walking us over to the counter where I had left the stack of books.

"Really?" he asked with surprise, looking down at the stack.

"Really. Here," I said handing him the hard cover version of his favorite book. It was so heavy that he struggled with it, so I handed him a paperback instead, and picked up the rest of the stack with my free hand. I sat us back down, and placed the books on the table where he could reach them.

"These are terrific! Thank you Uncle Carlisle!" he exclaimed hugging me tightly. Then he turned to the books, picked one out, and started reading. As soon as he put Dracula down, I moved it out of sight so that he would forget about it. Esme saw and raised an eyebrow in response.

"How do you do that? He just called you Uncle Carlisle. That is the second time he has called you that, but all he calls me is Esme."

"Easy. I just bought him a book."

"I buy him books all of the time. I even try to get history ones because I know that those are his favorite."

"Did you get the history books from the children's section or the adult section?"

"Children's. He is only six."

"There is your problem: he reads the adult ones. I got all of these from the University bookstore, as they have a wider selection than the regular bookstore." I had attended a seminar in Seattle during the week and while I was there, I stopped by the University bookstore.

"Really? You went all of the way to Seattle just to get him some books?"

"Yes, and it worked, didn't it: I bought his love and made you jealous."

"And why did you want to do that?"

"Because I want you to be my girlfriend, and I wanted your child to like me, so that you would have to say yes."

"Oh…" she paused and thought about it for a moment, before giving me her answer. "Yes, that sounds nice. Do you have something in mind for a date?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, next Friday I get off early, and my friend Charlie is available to watch Edward. Do you have anyone to watch Jasper?"

"No, I don't really know anyone. I normally just take him with me if he is not in school."

"Well, Jasper could come with us," I suggested. Taking Jasper with us on our first official date was not the most romantic thing I could envision, but it would be better than taking both kids with us. And Jasper seemed too sensitive to leave with strangers. Otherwise, I would have suggested a sitter.

"That sound's great! What did you have in mind?"

"Dinner and a movie in Port Angeles: typical first date stuff."

"Well, if Jasper is going, we will have to find something he likes too."

"I would suggest the new P-O-T-T-E-R movie, but I don't want to go without Edward."

"There's a new Harry Potter movie Uncle Carlisle?" Jasper asked quietly. "Why didn't we go to that instead of that stupid movie last week?"

"How did he figure that out? Spelling things out always works on Edward…"

"Jasper won the spelling bee last year in Kindergarten."

"Really, you won the spelling bee little man?" I asked excitedly and he nodded shyly. "Good for you."

"Oh, I just remembered: I stopped by the mall today while I was in Port Angeles and picked up their Halloween costumes. But I left them in the car. Care to walk with me?" Esme asked.

I readily agreed and she held my free hand as we walked to the car. My winning over Jasper plan seemed to be working, as Esme walked closer to me to be nearer to him. And Jasper was so quiet with his head laid down on my shoulder, that I barely even noticed him when I was looking in his aunt's beautiful brown eyes.

I thought that we would not be able to hold hands on the way back, as I would have to carry bags of costumes with my free hand. But, Esme surprised me by piling both costume bags onto one arm, and using her other hand to hold mine. We only broke contact once we were back inside the house.

Esme dropped the bags on the coffee table in the living room, and Edward eyed the bags suspiciously as he put down his Barbie.

"I went back to The Disney Store and bought the costumes you kids asked for. Do you want to try them on now?" Esme asked.

Jasper just stayed put in my arms and eyed the bags, while Edward stayed back, clearly apprehensive about what Esme had bought him: she had told him no to the dress before. I could tell he was unsure about whether she had gotten the dress, or if she was trying to push a boy's costume on him.

"Oh my Tink, this is one fancy dress," I said peeking into his bag at the yellow lace.

Edward's eyes lit up at my comment, and he wasted no time in running over to me and examined the gown. He gently pulled the Belle gown from the bag and held it up to himself to see how it looked. He was treating the fabric with as much care as he would a fragile antique.

"Edward, there is more in the bag," Esme said. "And Jasper, don't you want to see your costume?"

Esme picked up Jasper's bag and brought it over to where I had sat down, with Jasper on my lap, on the couch. First she pulled out the Jack Sparrow costume and Jasper broke the slightest smile across his lips. Then she pulled out the full wig complete with the piece of eight, bandana, beads, and reindeer shin bone. He stared at it for all of three seconds before taking it from her.

Jasper was looking at the piece of eight replica, tracing it with his fingers, when Esme pulled out the light-up plastic sword from the bag. "Is that for me Auntie?" Jasper asked in his quiet voice.

"Sure is. I know it's not a real pirate sword, but I couldn't find any fencing lessons offered nearby."

"Awesome!" Jasper exclaimed, a full smile gracing his face. He cast the wig aside, took up the sword, and hugged Esme. "Thank you."

"That is the first time he has hugged me since his father died," Esme said looking like she was holding back tears.

By that time Edward had finished stripping and had slipped his gown over his head. He was currently pulling a scepter and a tiara out of the bag. The Belle gown fell perfectly to his ankles, and the straps sat elegantly on his dainty shoulders. And the flat chest did not change the look in the slightest, because little girls do not have a bust either. I have to say, Edward was really pulling the princess look off.

"Oh my! Look at my gorgeous princess! Edward, can I help you put in the tiara?" Esme asked.

"Yes please," he replied. Esme pulled out a comb and properly affixed the tiara in his hair.

Then Edward turned to the old mirror on the wall by the door, and his jaw dropped: he must have liked what he saw. "Thank you so much Mommy!" he exclaimed jumping into Esme's arms and giving her a kiss on the cheek. "I love you."

And that did it: the tears started spilling from Esme's eyes. "You're welcome Edward. I'm so glad you like it," she replied touched by Edward's sentiment.

Jasper called her Auntie or Esme, so this must be the first time anyone has ever called her Mommy before. And judging from the smile on her face, she must have liked it. I liked it too. I did not tell Edward to call her that, as he just did it on his own. But I would have to tell him to continue to do so, because I would do anything to see that smile again.

Esme sat down next to me while Jasper and Edward started to play with their new sword and scepter. "Does Edward have a sword?" Esme asked me.

"No. I normally by him toys like Barbies and butterfly wings."

"Edward, do you want a sword so that you can play with Jasper?"

"Sure Mommy, but not if I have to give back the scepter. I've never had a scepter before," Edward replied.

"You can keep the scepter sweetie," Esme replied.

By the time we got the costumes back off of the kids, it was already eight, and as it was a school night, we decided to call it an evening. I sent Edward to get ready for bed, and kissed Esme goodnight. I even buckled a sleeping Jasper into the backseat for her. Hopefully she will be able to get him into his bed without waking him.


	7. Chapter 6

I spent the whole of the next week fixating on my upcoming date with Esme. We ended up seeing the third Lord of the Rings movie. It was a bit hard to follow, as I had not seen the first two, but Esme and Jasper had and we had a good time. Jasper and Esme liked it because they had read the books, while I liked it because Esme snuggled up to me during the movie. Sure Jasper was cock blocking by being in my arms at the time, but still, it was better than nothing. I even got to kiss her after the movie.

Of course, I was carrying a sleeping Jasper in one arm during said kiss, but it was a wonderful first kiss all the same. And our first official date set the stage for the rest of our romance: love with a side of kids, seemed to be our motto. Instead of taking Esme out to a fancy five star restaurant and dancing, I would take her to kid friendly events, and bring along two children.

Wednesdays, we would go to Jasper's little league games, and Esme would cook at her place afterwards. Fridays, we would go to a kid friendly restaurant, and back to my place to watch movies while dressed in their Halloween costumes. Then a sword fight would ensue, and Jasper would win, because Edward could not hold the sword correctly. And Edward frequently lost focus during the sword fights, putting down his sword in order to pick up his new scepter or straighten his gown.

Saturdays would be our support group followed by a day at the park and a picnic. Sundays I would watch the kids by myself during the day, and cook dinner at night, complete with movie and sword fight. Monday nights Esme and I would take Edward to dance class, with Jasper tagging along. Afterward we would get Chinese take-out and go back to my place.

The Sunday before Halloween I took Jasper and Edward into the city to get their pictures taken. I had a picture of Edward at Halloween from every year, and I wanted one this year to add to the collection. Plus they looked really cute together in their pirate and princess costumes. And that was our first official family portrait.

I took the Thursday of Halloween off early so that I could go Trick or Treating with Esme, Charlie, and the children. This would be the first time that Esme would meet my best friend and his daughter, so I was really hoping it would go well. It was also going to be the first time I brought other children around Jasper, as he had never met Bella before.

Esme also took off from work early for Halloween and came over to my house with a freshly baked peach pie.

"What's in the box?" I had asked when she arrived.

"Peach pie for Halloween," she had replied.

"Is that a tradition in your family? I thought candy was more traditional for this holiday."

"Yes, it was my sister's tradition to make pie. Pie is better for you than candy, and is Jasper's favorite. So after Trick or Treating, she would exchange a few slices of pie for his bag of candy. She threw the candy away, and he ate pie," she explained.

"He doesn't get to have any candy?" I asked in shocked horror. Surely candy was what Halloween was about.

"She always let them have a few pieces, just not a whole bag full."

"Oh, that's understandable. I wasn't going to let Edward eat the whole bag full either."

Esme and I wanted the children to have a solid meal before they started in on the candy, so we started dinner while we waited for Charlie. Charlie had to work until five. The doorbell rang right on time as Esme stirred the spaghetti sauce and I drained the noodles.

"That must be Charlie and Bella," I said drying my hands as I heard Edward racing towards the front door.

Edward and Jasper had been sword fighting in the living room, so Edward was the first to get the door. I followed in right behind him with my greetings, and then I introduced my best friend and his daughter to my girlfriend and her nephew. It went well, except that Jasper stayed back in the corner and just waved instead of speaking. But that was typical Jasper and I had already told Charlie what to expect.

The six of us had a nice meal together, before dressing the kids up, and taking them Trick or Treating. Bella was Alice from Alice in Wonderland. She looked so cute next to Edward the princess and Jasper the pirate and I could not wait to take them Trick or Treating.

But there were two main problems with Trick or Treating. First of all, I was letting Edward go out in a dress. This was the one day a year his biological mother had let him go out in a dress and I was a little concerned about whose door we knocked on like this. So I decided to take Alan and Jack's advice and only knock on doors of people I knew really well, so that we would not have any surprises. I was not aware of any homophobes in the area, but you never know.

The other problem with Trick or Treating was that we lived so far away from the other houses. So we all piled into my SUV to drive instead of walk. Our closest neighbors were the Johansens. When we knocked on their door, their boy Henry greeted us in his skeleton costume. He passed out some candy to each of our kids, but before we left, Mrs. Johansen came to the door. "Oh good! I was hoping you would stop by Carlisle. Your Edward looks so cute I could just pinch his little cheeks. But listen, my middle child Katie is sick with a cold, so I can't take the kids out this year. Molly is too little to know the difference, but would you mind taking Henry?"

Mrs. Johansen always did way more favors for me, mostly watching Edward, than I had ever been able to repay, so I really wanted to agree. But at the same time I was worried that Jasper might freak if yet another stranger joined us. So I looked over to Esme to silently ask if this was alright with her. She nodded so I replied, "I would love to Mrs. Johansen! We are just going to drive around about a dozen houses and then head back to my house. I'll drop him off when our celebration ends."

"Thank you so much for this Carlisle. And you know Edward is welcome here anytime," she replied.

"Well, while we are all here, I would like you to meet my girlfriend, Esme Platt, and her nephew Jasper. And you know Charlie and Bella Swan."

A round of hellos went out from my crowd, and Mrs. Johansen said what a pleasure it was to meet Esme and Jasper. While the adults were talking, Henry grabbed his football and his bag and went to stand with our children. I had not really been paying attention to them, but when I turned around, Jasper and Henry were tossing the football back and forth.

I was not sure what had possessed Henry to bring a football with him Trick or Treating, but I was sure glad he had, because he and Jasper seemed to bond instantly. Jasper and Henry climbed in the very back seat and talked about sports the whole way, while Bella, Edward, and Charlie sat in the back and talked about Barbies.

After about ten houses, we called it a night. All four kids got half a bag of candy, with only a few relatively healthy items, like popcorn, crackers, and juice. And after we got back home, we allowed them to each choose five pieces of candy to go with their pie. They were so excited that they ran around the house sword fighting and tossing the football back and forth. They got so rowdy that Charlie and I even made them take it outside. But it was a school night, thus we had to cut our celebrations short.

Once everyone left, I took Henry back home and told Mrs. Johansen just how much fun Henry had had playing with Jasper. Henry backed up my story by saying that Jasper had a good arm, so Mrs. Johansen said that Jasper was welcome over anytime. This was really good for me, because it now meant that Esme and I had a sitter for the little guy when we wanted a romantic night to ourselves.

So Halloween worked out well, but Esme and I both already had plans for Thanksgiving. Esme was going to visit her family in Texas, while I was taking Edward to visit my cousins in Alaska for Thanksgiving. I could tell Edward was nervous about the trip, but I hoped he would loosen up once he got to know my family better. And I was hoping most of the nerves were just because this was his first time taking a trip since the one that had killed his parents.

His father had taken Edward and his mother with him on a business trip to Hong Kong when the SARS epidemic broke out. The entire family caught the disease before flying back to the States. Because of that trip, Edward had lost both of his parents and nearly died himself. So I could understand why Edward might be apprehensive about flying.

But Edward was even more nervous after we landed than he had been while on the plane. He held my hand tightly the whole way through the airport to the baggage claim. My cousins, Tanya and Kate, were waiting for us there, and as soon as Edward spotted them, he clung to my leg and would not let go.

"It's okay Edward; they are not going to hurt you. They are my family. Why are you so scared?" I asked trying to pry his arms from my legs.

"They have strange yellow eyes, sharp teeth, and weird reptilian skin," Edward replied. Ah the things children say… "Please don't make me stay with them!"

"I'm going to be with you the entire time. I promise I will not leave you alone. But we are going to their house to spend two days with them. Then we will go back to Forks, just the two of us. I promise. And you can wear dresses the entire time," I offered.

"Can I change now?" he asked, looking up from where he had buried his face in my jacket.

"No, it is very cold up here in Alaska. You can change just as soon as we get to their house," I replied.

"Okay," he choked out, trying not to cry.

As if on cue, Tanya and Kate approached us and greeted me. "And look at how much your Edward has grown!" Kate exclaimed, but held her distance knowing he was scared.

"He is the cutest little thing ever!" Tanya added, inching closer. "And I bought you the most gorgeous ball gown ever. Will you dance with me my sweet?" she asked doing a little twirl.

"No thanks," Edward squeaked out his replied. Refusing a dress was not like him, so he must really not have wanted to dance with her.

"Give him some time, he will warm up to you eventually," I reassured her. Edward could not refuse a dress forever.

"Okay my darling boy, I'll wait for you to dance with me," Tanya replied tapping her index finger to her chin.

"There are their bags!" Kate exclaimed before dashing off to retrieve our luggage. She must have recognized my luggage from my last visit.

A few minutes later we were loaded in the car, with Edward snuggled into my side in the backseat. He gripped my arm tightly for the entire half an hour drive, despite the fact that both women were in the front seat and could not possibly harm him. And while we drove, Tanya and Kate chattered on about the feast they were preparing, as if they actually might eat some of it this year.

I was quite glad when we arrived and the car ride was finally over. I went to grab our bags, but Irina was already there saying, "I've got them. You just get that boy of yours."

Edward did seem unusually sluggish, so I figured he was tuckered out from the long flight, and picked him up to carry into the house. Eleazar and his wife, Carmen, were waiting for us on the porch. They greeted us and walked us inside, without asking for hugs. Somehow they must have known they were not going to get them from Edward today.

I was about to suggest to Edward that I put him to bed when he asked, "Can I change now Daddy?"

Edward had asked in such a quiet voice that I still thought he must be exhausted, so I decided to go ahead with my earlier notion and suggested, "Why don't we put you in your new nightgown?"

"I wanted to wear my new green dress," he replied.

"Are you sure you are not tired? Are you hungry then?" I asked.

"No, I'm not tired or hungry. I just want to change: these clothes are too hot for in the house," he replied but laid his head down on my shoulder anyway.

"Well if you are not too tired Edward, maybe you could open up this present I got you," Irina suggested setting down our suitcases by the stairs and grabbing a present from the coffee table. Now that I looked, the coffee table was full of presents.

"No, he should open my present first," Kate insisted retrieving a second present from the table.

"Well I already know he is not ready for mine," Tanya said pointing to a rather large box that was taking up half of the table. "Oh, and those were the accessories to match Edward, in case you were wondering." She pointed to a large circular box and several smaller boxes that were piled on top of the larger box.

"Well of course he would not want that dress Tanya! It has way too much lace and ribbon and pouf for my boy. He would prefer what is in my box," Carmen insisted picking up a flat rectangular box and the pair of powder blue child sized heels on top.

"Those heels are a death trap, my present comes with flats," Kate replied picking up a shoe sized box from the table.

"You women are over whelming the poor boy with your dresses! He would probably much rather have this box of Barbies I picked out for him," Eleazar said indicating the final box on the table, which was a large cardboard box filled with smaller packages.

"What do you think Tink? Do you think you feel up to opening any of those presents?" I asked as I watched him drooling at the blue shoes Carmen was holding up. "Maybe just Carmen's?"

"Yes," he replied, still staring at the shoes.

I sat down on the couch, placed Edward right next to me, and Carmen set her present, complete with shoes, in his lap. "See ladies, I told you my shoes were the best," Carmen teased her sisters.

"Only because he has yet to see mine," Irina replied.

Edward spent an inordinate amount of time caressing the shoes before setting them to the side and opening the dress-box. He delicately picked up a powder blue satin gown cut in a long and slender style. It was simple elegance with embroidered dragonflies running along the bottom edge.

"It's beautiful. Thank you," Edward told Carmen. "Can I put it on now?"

"You're welcome sweetie! Anything for my favorite little man. I had it made especially for you," Carmen replied.

"You really shouldn't have, you know that right?" I asked smiling at my cousins.

"Yes, but what else have we to do than spoil our only relation?" Eleazar answered. "And you can use the bathroom right down the hall, Edward."

"Here, I'll help you: that dress looks like it will take two to put on," I suggested.

Edward nodded handing me the dress as he picked up the shoes and we went into the bathroom to try to figure out the most elaborate gown I had ever seen. Instead of a zipper in the back, there were zippers on each side. The front was cut high and proper, but the back dipped down low to the small of his back, while the left side was slit up to his knee. And there was nothing but a string of beads across the right shoulder for a strap.

Five minutes later I was fairly certain Edward had the dress on correctly and was helping him put on his first pair of heels. Luckily the heels were only half an inch high or he probably would have tripped on the way back to the living room. But as it was, he walked elegantly back to the couch and returned to his previous spot by my side.

"Let me just get a few dozen pictures of you Edward: you look so handsome in that gown," Carmen said pulling out her camera. Edward stood up and gracefully gave the gown a twirl for her before returning to his seat.

The evening went on like that, with my cousins showering Edward with presents in the hopes that he would warm up to them. Tanya gave him a beige ball gown with such a large skirt that it looked like it was straight out of the eighteen hundreds. The gift came complete with a matching hat, necklace, stockings, and period pair of shoes. All also custom made just for him.

Irina gave Edward a dress made of beautiful white fur with snowflakes embroidered over the right hip. The fur pouffed out along the collar, cuffs, and hem and I tried not to think about what animal the fur must have been from. But at least the matching white boots did not have much fur: they were made out of white leather, but were lined and trimmed with white fur. The matching jacket was also made of white leather and lined with white fur. The entire ensemble looked rather warm and toasty.

Kate's gift was a bright green and yellow Chinese style gown with a high neck and a red dragon embroidered along the bodice. She had paired it with simple red oriental style shoes. Edward's eyes lit up when he saw it and Kate explained that she had picked it up last month in China: it was also made specifically for the purpose of spoiling Edward.

But by the time he had finishing fawning over all his new dresses and shoes, Edward was too tired to open his box full of Barbies. I could tell he was fading on us because his eyes kept drooping. So I put him to bed and told him he could finish opening all of his presents in the morning.

"Can I wear the Chinese gown tomorrow?" Edward asked.

"You can wear anything you want. And that white dress looked warm enough that it could even be worn outside," I replied kissing him goodnight.

The next morning Edward woke me up to ask for help buttoning up his Chinese gown. But he was much more reluctant than usual about leaving the room, especially considering there was still an entire box of Barbies left to open. So I let him hold my hand in encouragement as we descended the stairs. Carmen, Kate, Irina, and Tanya were already setting the dining room table with breakfast, while Eleazar was sitting in the recliner in the living room next to his enormous box of un-opened presents.

"You can open the presents after you eat," I told Edward as I watched him eyeing the box of presents.

"But I'm not hungry," Edward whispered.

"Humor me. I'm starving," I said leading us to the table.

Edward sat down next to me and put a few slices of melon on his plate, but he mostly just cut them up into smaller pieces and pushed them around his plate while I ate. When I finished my meal, I decided to give the kid a break, thinking that his stomach might be bothering him from the plane ride.

"Okay, let's go see what Eleazar got you," I suggested clearing our plates.

Instead of running into the room and going straight to the presents like usual, Edward stayed right by my side until I was ready to go into the living room. I sat down on the couch in my same spot from the day before, while Edward sat down right next to me and waited for Eleazar to bring the presents to him.

Eleazar complied and sat the entire box of presents in front of Edward, before retreating to his chair. Edward slowly picked up and unwrapped each present. Just as Eleazar had said, there were several dozen Barbies in the box along with hundreds of spare outfits and accessories. There was even a human sized Barbie themed sled in the box.

"In case you get tired of playing inside and want to go sledding," Eleazar said when Edward looked up from opening the sled, which was the last item in the box.

"Thank you," Edward replied smiling. Maybe the bribery had worked and he was finally opening up around my family.

"You are welcome young man," Eleazar replied.

Edward spent the rest of the day playing Barbies, while the women spent the day in the kitchen, and Eleazar and I caught up on old times. Thanksgiving dinner was served at three, and Edward ate a few bites, while my cousins each sat with a plate of food in front of them and pretended to eat. I noticed that every time Edward would look at one of them, whoever he was looking at would take an actual bite: it was the first time I had ever seen them actually eating before.

But despite the fact that I was the only one who legitimately enjoyed the food, we got through the meal. Afterwards Carmen suggested that we all go sledding, so I borrowed one of their sleds and took my boy sledding for the first time. But not before he changed into the white fur-lined dress and matching boots and jacket. And Irina surprised him by pulling out four more packages from by the fireplace: a matching hat, wool stockings, scarf, and gloves set.

So Edward was warm and fashionable in his sledding attire and we all had a lot of fun. Edward even started to loosen up a bit. But before long, the sun set and we had to go back inside. And this time Edward changed into the ball gown Tanya got him, although he still refused to dance with her. He did however agree to dance with me, so I went a round or two twirling him around on my toes.

After that I put him to bed and by the time I woke up, my cousins had already packed all of our stuff for us. Edward changed back into the blue gown from the first night, and he spent the morning sitting quietly by my side as I spent our last few hours in Alaska talking to my last remaining relatives. I always worried that they would die of old age without me getting a chance to see them again, because despite their young appearance, I knew that they were all getting on in years.

And after a nice leisurely morning, Edward changed into the warm fur outfit. Then Kate and Irina drove us back to the airport and we returned to Forks with several extra suitcases full of gifts and a sled in tow. And I was pleased to discover that although Edward was still scared of them, he was not nearly so reluctant to see my cousins again. He even asked me when the next time we would get to see them was: I had a sneaking suspicion he was looking forward to more dresses.


	8. Chapter 7

Group was canceled the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so Esme and Jasper came over to my house for the day. I was really looking forward to seeing them, because unlike Edward and I who were only gone for three days, Esme and Jasper had been gone for a week and a half. Esme had even taken Jasper out of school a few days for the trip, but she had to be back in town by tomorrow for a meeting, so they had flown back last night.

Edward took the opportunity to show off his nice blue gown and was wearing it when we greeted our guests. "Mommy! Look what Cousin Carmen gave me!" he exclaimed throwing himself into her arms. "I missed you so much!"

"That's a lovely dress Edward!" Esme replied, returning his sentiment and obviously touched that he thought of her as his mother. I had not even reminded him to call her that.

"Where's my hug Jasper?" I asked a rather reluctant looking Jasper. "You know my cousins sent me an extra bag of presents in case I had any other children waiting for me at home. Would you care to open them?"

"No thank you sir," Jasper replied clinging to his old tattered history book as I reached down and hugged him anyway.

"And why not?" I asked breaking the hug, but leaving my hands on his shoulders.

"Edward's dress is pretty, but I don't want one myself," he replied politely.

"Oh no Jasper, my cousins did not send any leftover dresses: they gave every dress they had to Edward. They sent me a box of books for you," I told him.

"Books for me? Really?" he asked with a smile and his eyes lighting up.

"Really. It's that box in front of the couch."

As soon as I said that, Jasper ran over to the box, quickly opened it, and examined his new books. None of them were history books, but they were all classic adult books. "These are great Uncle Carlisle! Will you please tell your cousins 'Thank you' for me?" he asked.

"I sure will," I replied as Esme left Edward and came to my side.

"You didn't have to do that," she said. "I didn't bring anything back for Edward."

"I didn't: my cousins sent the books," I replied. "And Jasper did not get any presents with your family, while Edward got a lot more than that dress while we were in Alaska. Tell me about your trip: Jasper looked so sad when he arrived."

"We had a nice time and Jasper was really happy to see his brother again. He missed his grandparents a lot, but not nearly as much as he missed Peter. The two of them spent the entire time playing like old times. Jasper seemed so much happier and he talked so much more and he just seemed much more normal. But then we had to leave and he had to get on that plane with me and he just started bawling," Esme told me.

"Well I'm glad he had fun with his brother, but it's too bad he was feeling so low about coming back home. Maybe the books will help," I offered.

Esme smiled at me and laid her head on my shoulder. "They already have: just look at that smile. It was not there this morning."

"What are your plans for Christmas?" I asked as Jasper sat down to read and Edward pulled out his new Barbies.

"I can only take off two days, which would mean flying on Newtonmas: it's just not worth it, so we are going to stay here," she answered.

"I have a week off, but I have to work the day after, so we are also going to stay here. But why do you call it Newtonmas?" I asked.

"Well unlike Christ, Newton was born on December twenty-fourth. Plus Jasper has a Christmas phobia, so I try not to mention anything that might set him off. Whatever you do, don't mention a certain jolly fat man."

"Why doesn't he like Christmas or Santa?"

"My sister loved Christmas. She always went so overboard with it that she spent months preparing. She was Christmas shopping with the boys the day she was ran over in the parking lot. Jasper has had a Christmas phobia ever since.

"As for the phobia of holiday characters, right before Jasper turned four, my sister told him about the fat man, and he accused her of lying. She denied it, and told him to get up on his lap and ask for a gift. He asked for a dining room table, and when he didn't get it, he forced her to admit that she had lied and made the whole thing up. And ever since then, we don't mention that sort of thing or he freaks. The worst part was that Peter overheard and no longer believes either," Esme finished.

"He figured it out at four? Edward still believes and he is eight!"

"Technically, three and eleven twelfths: Jasper's birthday is at the end of January, so he was not quite four."

"That's too bad. But what are we going to tell Edward? He is bouncing all over the place with excitement."

"Just tell him Jasper is scared of the fat guy, so he has to be secretive and not say anything in front of Jasper, or he will cry. I would hate for Jasper to have one of his panic attacks."

"Okay, I'll tell Edward later tonight," I replied.

After that Esme and I agreed that the four of us would spend the upcoming holidays together, since we could not spend them with our families. Since it was another unusually warm fall day, we took the boys out to the woods for a hike. As soon as we got outside, Jasper started talking about hunting. In fact, he was talking so much I began to think I had the wrong kid.

"I haven't been hunting in a long time, but maybe I could get some gear together and we could take the boys one weekend?" I quietly asked Esme when the boys had run on ahead and were out of ear shot. "There are a few good spots to go deer hunting nearby."

"I think hunting is too dangerous for six and eight year-olds. I may have grown up on a ranch in Texas, but my parents waited until we were twelve to put a gun in our hands," she replied.

"I was ten, but Jasper has already been. How about I get BB guns and test his capabilities with a gun first? If he knows what he is talking about, we line up some cans to shoot and call it hunting. If not, I spend the day giving the boys a lecture on gun safety and say we will get around to shooting the cans next time," I suggested.

"Well Jasper does ask me to go at least once a week, every week. So alright, as long as it is only BBs and you boys are safe," she agreed and I leaned over and stole a kiss.

Jasper was ecstatic when we told him about our proposed hunting trip, but Edward was not, although he did agree to go with us. So I added a trip to Newton's sporting goods to my lists of things to do next week and we spent the rest of the afternoon out in the woods communing with nature, after which we went back inside and had dinner.

But after dinner Esme said they had to get going, so I loaded the books into her car before giving Jasper a hug and Esme a deep kiss. And as soon as they were gone, I went to talk to Edward about the Santa Claus problem with Jasper.

"Edward, can I talk to you about Santa?" I asked shutting the front door behind us.

"What is it? Santa didn't get hurt, did he?" Edward asked with fear in his voice.

"No, Santa is fine. But Jasper is afraid of Santa."

"How can anyone be afraid of Santa?" Edward asked incredulously. "He's great and I love him!"

"Jasper will cry if you mention Santa, so I need you to speak in code for me, can you do that?"

"Code? Like a secret agent?" he asked.

"Exactly like a secret agent. Now, whenever you want to say Santa, you say, 'The Jolly Man.' And whenever you want to say Christmas, use Newtonmas instead. And you can talk about presents, but you can't say where they come from. Got it?" I asked.

"The Jolly Man and Newtonmas, got it. But where do I say the presents come from if I can't say Santa?" Edward asked.

"Don't tell Jasper this, but he thinks Esme just buys his presents from the store. That way he doesn't get upset, but still gets the nice presents. If you tell him the presents didn't come from the store, then he will get really scared and not want them. Understand?"

"So I let him think that the presents are from the store, not from the North Pole?"

"Exactly. You are going to be the best spy ever!" I complimented him and ruffled his hair. "If you pull this off, then Santa will see what an extra good boy you are helping him to not scare little Jasper. Maybe he will even build you an extra special present in his workshop."

I was feeling quite grateful that he was buying it, so I let him stay up and prance around in the ball gown Tanya had got him. I put on some music and we started dancing around the living room.

While we spun, I brought up our earlier conversation, "Why don't you want to go hunting Tink?"

"I don't want to kill little animals. That's gross!" he explained.

"Well we aren't going to hunt animals this time. All we are going to shoot are tin cans. And we can empty them first."

"I still don't want to."

"Will you at least try it? And then if you still don't like it, you can sit with Esme and ask her to comb your hair."

"Can I wear a dress the whole time?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Then I'll try it," he finally conceded.

"That's all I ask Tink." I picked him up and twirled him around in my arms.

Time passed quickly with all of the holiday shopping and preparations for our hunting trip. Especially because Edward had gotten sick and I had to take time off from work to stay home with him. I had made sure to get him the new flu shot, but he had come down with the common cold, which was unpreventable.

From Edward's file I gathered that he was a sickly child, always coming down with something every few months. And that was just the illnesses that he was treated for; who knows how many other illnesses his mother treated at home? Plus, I was still extra concerned for his health after the SARS thing and almost losing him, so I paid very close attention to his condition until he improved. Luckily, all my worrying was for naught, because it was just a cold and Edward was back up and running around after six days.

But between catching up on all the work I had missed, worrying about Edward's health, and holiday shopping, our first Newtonmas as a family was upon us before I knew it. It was a rather precarious holiday with Jasper terrified of Santa and Edward still believing in him. But Edward played his super-spy part to the letter, and Jasper did not freak out.

Esme and I both had the weekend after Christmas off, so we choose that date for our wannabe hunting trip. We picked an isolated spot not too far off the trail in the nearby Olympic forest. The four of us hiked in with all our supplies, and despite the fact that he was wearing the white fur dress, Edward skipped along merrily the whole way. I would have thought he would be much more concerned about dirtying his dress.

Jasper was the happiest I had ever seen him and he kept chattering away. "Next time can we hunt deer? Or rabbits? I wonder if there are any bear or coyotes in these parts… Oh, and I want a new riffle for my birthday Esme. And can the next trip be a real trip? With camping and hiking and eating hotdogs over a campfire?"

"And can we have smores?" Edward asked getting excited about a possible future camping trip.

"Can we Esme? Please?" Jasper asked. "I want to go for my birthday: I'm gonna be seven!"

"We'll see boys," Esme replied. "Carlisle, his birthday is January thirty-first. Do you think you can get a few days off around then?"

"I think so: they owe me after I worked the day after Newtonmas," I answered.

When we got to a small clearing, I pulled out the BB gun and other supplies, while Esme set up the row of tin cans. Jasper took to the gun immediately; he obviously knew what he was doing. I did not have to show him anything, as he already knew all the gun safety rules as well as how to hold and shoot the gun. I spent an hour going over said safety rules for Edward and then I could not stall any longer: I handed the gun over to the six year old.

Jasper was a perfect shot and hit all six cans with just six bullets. Edward was so scared of the noise that he did not even want to try. But he kept his promise and let me help him take aim at a can. As soon as that first shot was fired, he ran to Esme asking, "Will you please hold me Mommy? Guns are scary and loud."

Esme replied, "Sure sweetheart. At least someone has a sensible reaction towards them."

So Edward spent the rest of the afternoon curled up in Esme's lap while she ran her fingers through his messy locks. And Jasper spent the rest of the afternoon decimating the tin cans we had brought.

"See Uncle Carlisle?" Jasper asked. "I told you I was a good shot!"

"You sure are!" I conceded.

"Do you have a tent? I want to camp out beneath the stars next time," Jasper informed me.

"But isn't it a little cold this time a year for camping?" I asked.

"Yes Jasper, it may be too cold to go on your birthday: we might have to wait for warmer weather," Esme added.

"Okay, as long as we still get to go. And who cares if it's cold? We can just bring sleeping bags and a portable heater and light a fire and wear parkas…" Jasper trailed off.

"I get it: you want us to go on your birthday whether weather permits or not," I teased.

"Yep!" Jasper replied cheerfully.

After shooting practice, the four of us had a picnic, which both Edward and Esme enjoyed infinitely more than our previous activity.

"I picked you some wild flowers Dad!" Edward offered as we sat down to eat. It was out of season, so the flowers were wilted.

"These are really great Tink! Thank you," I replied.

"That's what our house is missing: wildflowers. My old Mom used to have a garden in the front yard with roses and sunflowers and daisies," Edward told me.

"We had roses too," Jasper added in.

"I don't have a patio at my apartment, but I love to garden," Esme said.

"Well maybe this spring the four of us can plant some pretty flowers in my yard and help me turn my house into a home," I suggested.

"That sounds like a great idea Dad!" Edward exclaimed throwing his arms around me.

"Okay," Jasper replied in between bites of his sandwich.

"I think tulips and daffodils will look really nice in front of your bay window," Esme added.

"Well then that's settled and we can plan a trip to the gardening store," I concluded as we finished lunch.

After that we packed the kids back in the car and went home. I had dreams of looking out my living room window and seeing rows of flowers that night. And Edward was running through the garden picking daisies and putting them behind his ear. But then they would fall out and he would start all over. A garden sounded like a lovely idea to me.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Warning- I do not recommend letting children play with guns, even if you are a doctor- Bad Carlisle. Did I mention his parenting skills are practically nonexistent? Personally I think he should spend more time on his parenting skills and less time trying to get into Esme's pants.<p> 


	9. Chapter 8

It was Valentine's weekend before the weather warmed up enough for a camping trip, so we killed two birds with one stone and celebrated Jasper's birthday on Valentine's Day. Esme and I had everything prepared to have an exciting children's party, an awesome camp-out, and a romantic night. We even had two tents, which were essential for the later.

I had just finished packing everything we would need for three days in the wilderness into my SUV, so I went inside to check on Esme and the kids. Esme was packing the sandwiches, sliced apples, and bottles of water into the lunch bag. We had packed a plethora of food into a large ice chest, which was already loaded in the car, but this lunch bag was to eat while we were on the road: it would take us two hours to drive to the camp grounds we had chosen.

Seeing as Esme was almost ready, I went down the hall to Edward's room to check on our boys. I found Jasper lying on Edward's bed reading one of his new books, while Edward was playing with his Barbies. Jasper was dressed in typical hiking clothes: long khaki pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and hiking boots. But Edward had on his red dress with the white sash in honor of Valentine's Day. Esme had tied a white ribbon with red hearts into a bow in his hair to match. But at least his shoes were sensible for the occasion: he had paired the outfit with a pair of matching red hiking boots.

"We are almost ready to go. There are not going to be any bathroom breaks, so you boys need to go now," I informed them.

"Yes sir," Jasper replied putting down his book.

"Okay Dad," Edward added, discarding the doll.

The two boys raced off down the hall to the bathroom, so I went back to the kitchen to see if there was anything I could help Esme with.

"Need any help sweetie?" I asked giving Esme a chaste kiss on the cheek as soon as I returned to the kitchen.

"Nope, all done. Are the boys ready?" she asked pulling me closer.

Our relationship was progressing on the physical side and I was hoping that tonight might be filled with firsts for us. I was certainly more than ready for a release. With the way I was straining against my pants as she brushed her lips to mine, any kind of release would do, just as long as it came soon. But I knew I would have to wait and be patient: we could not do what I had in mind while our boys were still awake.

"Yes, I just sent them to use the restroom before we head out," I replied before pressing my lips to hers.

I lost track of time as our make-out session deepened. But I was pulled back down to Earth by Jasper. "Uncle Carlisle, Edward's pee-pee hurts," Jasper tattled.

I turned around to find Jasper right in front of me and I could just make out a tuft of Edward's bronze hair from his hiding place behind the kitchen door. "Edward, is this true?" I asked. Due to his hypospadias, he was more prone to urinary tract infections than the average kid and he tended to get one or two a year. So if his pee-pee did hurt, I knew that it was probably another bladder infection.

"Yeah," Edward choked out looking like he was about to cry.

"He didn't go pee-pee either," Jasper continued to tattle.

"Come here. Why didn't you tell me? You know you are not in trouble right?" I asked.

"Nnn…no. It just started this morning and I didn't want to ruin the trip. Please don't make me go to the hospital!" he begged walking to me.

"You are burning up," I commented as I placed my hand on his forehead to check his temperature. "You had to go to the hospital when this happened with your biological parents because neither of them were doctors. But I can care for you at home. I only took you to the hospital last time because I had to work. I don't have to work today, so we can go to my office and take care of this."

"Are we going to miss the trip?" Jasper asked concerned.

"I don't know yet. Esme, can you get Edward a pair of pajama pants and a nightgown for me?" I asked leading Edward to my office.

I quickly took his temperature and gave him some children's Tylenol for the fever. He was only running a low grade fever at ninety-nine point eight degrees, so Tylenol should be sufficient. As I took notes, I asked Edward for more information, "Where does it hurt?"

"In here," Edward said placing his hands over his groin above his bladder. "And there." He pointed to his penis, which was typical for a mild urinary infection. "It feels like I have to pee, but nothing came out when I tried. I have to pee really bad Daddy. Can you fix it again?"

"Sure can Tink. I have some of your antibiotics right here," I said retrieving a bottle of children's trimethoprim and a second one of sulfamethoxazol. I measured out the correct dosage, before administering the medicine to Edward.

"Can I have some water?" he asked swallowing the last of it down.

I nodded and opened a water bottle, from the pack behind my desk, for him. "And I'll have to cath you again," I said pulling out a catheter kit from my cabinet. I had everything I would need to treat a urinary tract infection already on hand, knowing how often they occurred: there was no reason for my boy to be in pain one second longer than necessary.

Urinary infections were common in patients with hypospadias because of malformations associated with the abnormally placed urethral opening. Edward's opening stayed open all the time, unlike a typical urethra which closes when not in use. This defect makes it easier for the bacteria to get in. And Edward had a narrowing of his urethra near the base of his penis, so when it swelled due to infection, it shut off urine flow completely. And whenever this happened, he had to be catheterized in order to prevent further complications.

"Not the catheter! Please no!" he cried as Esme opened the door.

"Are these okay?" she asked bringing in a pair of blue boy's pajama pants covered in Monster's Inc. and a long blue Disney Princess themed nightgown. They did not match, but they were what I needed.

"Yes, those are perfect," I said taking the garments.

"Is he going to be okay?" she asked standing by the door, unsure of whether to enter or not.

"I'll know in a minute. Why don't you wait with Jasper? I'm sure he is scared right now."

"I'm scared too. Can Mommy hold my hand?" Edward asked.

I looked to Esme to see if this was alright with her and she nodded, so I replied, "Sure she can hold your hand while I cath you. But first you need to change. And Esme you need to check on Jasper to make sure he will be fine until we finish. It should only take a minute."

"Okay," Esme replied before leaving the room while Edward started stripping.

I helped Edward untie the sash on the dress and unzip the back, but I let him leave the bow in his hair. When he was down to his underpants and socks, he quickly put on the night clothes while I folded his discarded dress. "Okay, lie down on the couch and pull your pee-pee out through the slit," I instructed while putting my gloves on. I had a reason behind asking for the unusual clothing combo.

Edward complied and I disinfected the area in preparation for the catheter. While I was doing this, Esme came back in.

"Jasper is reading. He's worried about Edward, but he'll be fine for a few minutes," she stated.

"I'm almost ready, so you can hold his hand now. You don't have to look," I said as I lubricated the catheter.

"Thanks Mommy," Edward said as Esme wrapped her left arm around him and placed her right hand in his. "It's not so scary with you here."

"Anything for you, my sweet boy," she replied kissing his forehead.

While he was distracted by Esme, I inserted the catheter and Edward started crying and tensing up in obvious pain. But thankfully it was over as soon as it started and the urine began to flow into the bag. Edward's cries turned to tearful sobs and then to sniffles as he squeezed Esme's hand.

"The urine is cloudy, so it is definitely a bacterial infection. But there is no blood this time, so I think we should still be able to make that camping trip after all," I said pulling the nightgown down and removing my gloves.

"That's good news: I bet you will be feeling better soon," Esme said giving Edward a squeeze.

"It already does not hurt as much," he replied.

"This bag is almost full already: you really shouldn't have waited so long to tell me about this Edward," I said holding up the full bag for him to see. "No wonder you were in so much pain."

"Sorry Daddy. I won't wait so long next time."

"It's okay. You know I love you right?" I asked leaning in to kiss his forehead.

"I love you too Daddy. And I love Mommy," he replied.

"I love Mommy too," I said as I kissed Esme softly on the lips.

"And I love both of you," Esme replied.

"Well just let me change the bag to the catheter and then we can get going," I said walking back over to my cabinet of medical supplies and grabbing another bag. I quickly changed the bag before dumping the contents of the first bag down the toilet.

"Okay, let's move you to the couch in the living room while I pack your medicine Tink," I said as I went over to pick him up. I placed the catheter bag on his chest and he held onto it with one hand, while wrapping the other arm around my neck.

"Is Edward alright?" Jasper asked as I laid Edward down on the couch.

"Yes, he is going to be just fine and we will still be able to go camping today," I answered. "Now I need you and Esme to keep an eye on him for me while I pack his new medicine."

"Yes sir," Jasper replied kneeling at Edward's side. "Does it hurt bad Edward?"

"Not so much anymore, but I get to pee into this bag. I've never peed in the living room before," I heard him answer as I went back down the hall.

Five minutes later I was back, having packed everything I would need to treat Edward's infection into my bag and slung in onto my shoulder. In my hands I was carrying his red hiking boots. "We wouldn't want to forget these, would we Tink?" I asked sitting down at his feet.

"I'm not going to be able to do much hiking now."

"Sure you will, just hold the catheter bag with one hand and your hiking stick with the other," I joked as I put his boots on and laced them up. "You won't have to keep the cath in the entire time and I'm sure you will feel better soon."

"I hope so," he replied.

"Jasper, you can help me take care of Edward by carrying my bag. How does that sound?" I asked.

"Awesome!" he exclaimed taking the bag from me. It was a little large for him, but he managed.

"Are we ready to go?" Esme asked retrieving the lunch bag and picking up Jasper's book: we would not want to be caught in the wilderness without that book. That plus a sick Edward was a recipe for disaster.

"Yep. Hold on tight," I said picking Edward up again.

Esme opened the front door for me before getting the rear driver's side door. I placed Edward lying down in the backseat, before retrieving my bag from Jasper. "Now where do you want to sit Jazz? In the front seat with me or in the back with Auntie and Edward?" I asked as Esme locked the front door.

"With Edward please," he replied as Esme came around to the other side, near Edward's head and removed the cooler which I had packed there. It would have to go into the front seat now.

Edward lifted up his head while Esme got in, before laying back down on her. Once Esme was belted in, I reached in and elongated the mild belt so that it would fit around Edward's horizontal waist. "Pull your legs up Tink," I instructed as I picked Jasper up and set him down in the seat by Edward's feet. Jasper was so skinny and Edward so short that Edward's feet stopped just shy of Jasper's legs.

If I had not folded the third row of seats down and filled the car full of camping supplies I would have let Edward have the row to himself to lie down. But as it was, we needed the space, so I crammed everyone into the backseat. I put both my bag and the lunch bag Esme had been carrying in the front seat, along with the displaced cooler, before retrieving Jasper's book from the roof of the car. "We wouldn't want to forget this, would we Jazz?" I asked as I handed him the book.

"Thanks Uncle," he replied as I buckled him in and shut the door.

I climbed into the front seat and we were finally on our way. Edward's medicine must have kicked in, because he fell asleep only ten minutes into the ride. And because our delay had taken so long, Jasper started complaining that he was hungry only thirty minutes into the drive. I did not want Esme to disturb Edward's nap by trying to get the sandwiches herself, so I pulled over to hand out the food.

Because none of us got out of the car, the stop for lunch only added an additional fifteen minutes to our drive. Well one of us did get out of the car: I got out when I changed Edward's catheter bag. It was not full, but we had another hour and a half to go, and I did not want to stop again; the additional delays associated with having children already meant that we would not reach the camp site until three p.m. this evening.

Edward was just rousing when we pulled into our camp site. "Did you have a nice nap sleepy head?" Esme asked.

"Yeah. Are we there already?" Edward asked groggily.

"Yep: you slept through the whole drive Tink," I said as I got out of the car and opened Jasper's door.

Jasper unfastened his seat belt and hopped out with his book, leaving me free access to Edward. I unfastened his seatbelt and examined his catheter bag: this time it was practically empty and did not need to be changed. Then I checked his temperature, which was almost down to normal, before instructing, "You stay in the car Tink while we set up. Do you want Jasper to sit with you?"

"Yes. Please Jasper, sit with me?" he asked as Esme exited the vehicle while trying to disturb Edward's head as little as possible.

"Okay," Jasper replied climbing back into his seat as I retrieved a few pillows from the back.

I propped Edward's head up so that he was half-way sitting up and would be able to talk to Jasper more easily. "Esme and I are going to be right here setting up the tents. We will be in hearing range the whole time, so if you need anything, just call," I instructed.

They both nodded so I rolled down the window and closed the door, before going to help Esme with the tent. I knew that they would be alright because I could still hear them talking inside the car the whole time. "What's it feel like?" Jasper asked Edward.

"When he put it in, it hurt. Then it felt like I was peeing. But at least I don't have to go to the hospital again," he explained as Esme and I began to assemble tent poles.

"Should they be talking about this?" Esme asked as we continued to assemble tent pole.

"Do you have to go to the hospital a lot?" Jasper asked.

"Yeah, I've gone a few times," Edward replied.

"Let them talk, they are just curious," I replied to Esme.

"Do you have to go to the every time?"

"No, sometimes it is not so bad and I can still pee. Then I get to stay home in bed and my old Mom would give me ice cream and sing to me. All I had to do was take the nasty antibiotics those times. But I remember one time when I was little it was really bad and I had to stay in the hospital for a month! There was blood in my cath bag and everything!"

"You were bleeding from your pee-pee?" Jasper asked raising his voice an octave.

"No, the other doctor said it was from my kidneys. Apparently that is where pee-pee comes from. It hurt really badly that time, right here."

"I used to think I would rather have your problem than mine, but I just changed my mind: I'm glad I don't have to go to the hospital and be in pain."

"I think I would trade with you, if I could: Daddy said you will look normal once you grow up. And it doesn't even hurt, right?"

"Right."

"Jasper?"

"Yeah Edward?"

"I'm sorry about ruining your birthday. When I couldn't pee this morning I prayed to Darwin that I was not getting sick again, but it didn't work."

"My birthday's not ruined: my birthday was two weeks ago and Esme made me pie, remember? And we have two whole days left to have fun. But why would asking a dead guy for help work?"

"Well my old parents used to pray to God whenever they wanted or needed help. But Daddy worships Darwin: he said Darwin's ideas have helped medicine advance. And medicine saves lives and makes sick people feel better. Medicine saved me. Maybe even one day medicine will be able to make us normal."

"I've hear of Darwin. He's really great, but I never heard of anyone praying to him before. Back in Texas they pray to God all the time. I'm pretty sure that he is mostly for drunks, because everyone I've ever seen talking to him was drunk."

"Your old parents never talked to him?"

"Nope. My Grandparents sometimes talk to Jesus, but Jesus never talks back. I'm not sure why they still try, but I think it is just because they are old. And they only do it when watching football. I heard the mind starts to decay when you get that old."

As interesting as eaves dropping on the boy's was, Esme and I had finally finished putting the first tent together, so Esme unzipped it and went inside to unzip all of the windows flaps. And while she did this, I went back over to the car to retrieve sleeping bags and more pillows.

"Dad?" Edward asked as I opened the trunk.

"Yeah Tink?"

"Why do people pray to God and Jesus?" he asked as Esme came over and took the pillows from me because I was taking too long.

"Because they don't know better. Their parents told them a lie and their IQ was too low to realize that they were just propagating the lie and that no one was listening," I said walking over to the open rear window to look at our boys.

"Oh…" Edward replied as Esme came back for the sleeping bags. "So is there any reason to pray to Darwin?"

"No, he is not listening either. But if you want comfort, you can read Darwin's words in his book and think about all of the great ideas he has given us."

"I tried to read it once, but it was too hard for me," Jasper admitted like this was a horrible lapse on his part, despite that fact that he was barely seven years old.

"Don't worry Jazz: it's a very hard book. I was much older than you before I could read it. But if you want, I will help you with it and explain some of the hard parts."

"That'd be great!" he replied.

"Will you help me too?" Edward asked sheepishly.

"Yes. In fact, next time I'm in Seattle I'll find a children's version of On the Origin for you two. Would you like that? They are illustrated with lots of colorful pictures of animals to demonstrate what Darwin was talking about."

"That sounds great Dad!" Edward replied.

"Yes please, Sir," Jasper replied.

"All ready," Esme called from the tent.

"Okay Tink, time to hold on again," I instructed as I opened the car door and pulled Edward into my arms once again.

Esme had a sleeping bag open and ready for him, with two pillows to prop up his head. "Comfy?" I asked as I laid him down in the prearranged area.

"Yep," he replied as Jasper climbed into the tent besides him. "My bag is still empty, but I'm thirsty."

"Of course you are sweetie: you didn't have any lunch, because you were asleep. Do you want some now?" Esme asked brining over the lunch bag.

"Not really: I'm not hungry and it is almost time for dinner now," he answered taking a bottle of water from Esme.

While Esme was fawning over Edward, I retrieved a few items from the car: my medical kit and the bag with the toys in it. The medical kit was so that I would have it on hand in case Edward needed it and the toys were to keep the boys occupied while Esme and I finished setting up camp. A smile lit up Edward's face when I handed him the bag of Barbies and Jasper must have felt sorry for the boy, because he agreed to play Barbies with him. Not just Barbie the History Major, but regular Barbies, which was a first.

And now that the kids were set in the tent, Esme and I got to work assembling that second tent. We barely got it up before the sun was setting. So we pulled out our lanterns as we went to gather fire wood. Thankfully the campsite had a pile ready to go nearby, or we never would have found enough before it got too dark to see in the forest.

Once we got the fire going, Esme pulled out the hotdogs and beans and started cooking, while I finished setting up the rest of camp and checked on Edward. We all crawled into Edward's tent to eat and sing campfire songs, because I did not want to risk him contaminating that catheter from being outside. Recathing an eight year old boy in the middle of the woods was not in my plans for the weekend.

On the other hand, putting two little boys to bed early so that the grown-ups could have a romantic night under the stars was. Luckily for me, Edward was so tuckered out from the infection that he fell asleep early. And once he was out, we used that as an excuse to put Jasper to bed a whole half an hour before his bedtime. If he had not forgotten his watch back at Esme's place we probably would not have gotten away with it.

So Esme and I had the night to ourselves. We climbed into our own tent and changed into our pajamas. Esme had on only a skimpy low-cut lacey teddy, which I greatly enjoyed taking off of her, but only after my tongue fully explored her mouth. We hit third base that night, but I hesitated to round home plate: I was saving that for tomorrow. After all, tomorrow would be Valentine's Day.

The following day we made more of an effort to celebrate Jasper's birthday, as that was the whole reason for the trip. Edward was feeling better, so I let him sit up in the tent, but told him he had to go another day with the catheter in. We played birthday games sitting down in the tent and tried to make the celebration fun. And I took Jasper hunting, just the two of us, while Esme stayed with Edward. And that night after dinner, Esme pulled out a cherry pie and we sang Happy Birthday to Jasper.

We put the kids to bed early again and our first time together was every bit as wonderful and romantic as I had dreamed. We lit candles in our tent and turned on a battery operated music player. I took my time and thoroughly made love to the love of my life. I had had sex before, but never before with someone I loved as much as Esme. Never with someone who was such a perfect match for me. And never with someone that I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my forever with. Being with Esme was all of that and more.

On our final day at the campsite, I finally took Edward's catheter out and let him up. He spent the morning frolicking in the woods, happy to just be able to get up and run around again. He was not cured, as he still had to take the antibiotics and urinate frequently. But he was better to the point where he could pee of his own accord and I did not need to re-catheterize him, something I was grateful for.

And since it was our last day camping and Edward had never gotten his smores, Esme and I served smores with breakfast. After breakfast, we let the boys play and run around while we packed up our campsite, returning everything back to the SUV from whence it came. Once we were packed, we still had a few hours before we had to head out, so the four of us went on that family hike we had never gotten a chance to have.

By the time we got back from our hike, it was lunch time and we were starving, so we pulled out the lunch bag and had left over venison sandwiches, which were not as good as they sound. And all we had left to go with them were apples and carrots, but the boys were just so happy to be camping that they did not even complain once. That was until they finished lunch and we told them they had to pile back in the SUV for the trip home.

The trip home did not go nearly as smoothly as the trip there, because I had to stop every half an hour for Edward to pee. He had to go so often that I actually considered cathing him right there on the side of the road, but I knew that that would be selfish of me, so I did not. But the whole time I kept thinking about how much easier it would make my life: especially because it meant I could check him into the hospital tomorrow instead of missing work.

Sometimes I think Edward must be a mind-reader, and this was one of those times, because while I was thinking this, he asked, "Where am I going to be while you're at work tomorrow Daddy?"

"I'll have to take another day off of work: they aren't going to be happy, so that means our Easter trip to Alaska is out," I answered.

"I can watch him," Esme volunteered. "I have work to do, but it's all stuff I usually do at home. No appointments, so if he can be quiet and entertain himself, he'll be fine."

"Well he is a bit more high maintenance than Jasper, but you can put a movie on and he will be fine for a few hours. Right Tink?" I asked.

"Yes. I'll even be really good if it means I don't have to go back to the hospital: the food is awful," he replied.

"But I always bring in good food from the cafeteria whenever you're in there," I responded.

"The cafeteria food is better than the stuff that comes on the tray, but it's still pretty bad."

"Well next time I'll sneak you in some real food from home," Esme offered. "And tomorrow you can come to my house. Just make sure to pack a bag with extra dresses, Barbies, DVDS, and a coloring book.

"You got it Mom. But it would be easier if you and my brother just moved in with me and Dad: we have plenty of room," he replied. Out of the mouths of babes… I would have to get this kid a new dress for that suggestion.


	10. Chapter 9

The next evening when I got off from my shift at the hospital, I went straight to pick Edward up from Esme's. Edward and Jasper opened the door for me, greeting me with hugs and smiles. "Daddy!" Edward exclaimed jumping into my arms. He was wearing his green long-sleeved dress and looked completely recovered.

"Hi Uncle Carlisle," Jasper greeted politely, standing back a step from the door.

"Hey Jazz. Where is your auntie?" I asked ruffling his hair.

"In the kitchen making dinner. I asked for pie, but it was a no go," he replied leading the way into the house. Needless to say, the boy loved pie.

"How do you feel Tink?" I asked leading the boys into the living room and placing my hand on Edward's forehead to check his temperature.

"Better: I don't have to pee all the time anymore," he replied. "Can I go back to school tomorrow? Tomorrow is art day and I don't want to miss that."

"Sure can Tink, just as long as you promise to go see the nurse and call me if you feel sick again."

"Okay Dad. Have you seen this movie Jasper was showing me? It has the guy who plays Will Turner in it, only now he's an elf!" he exclaimed pointing to the paused television set. Sure enough Lord of the Rings, the first one, was paused on the screen.

"Yes, but I had no idea that you would like it Tink," I answered.

"I didn't. But then Jasper explained what was going on to me, and Legolas is so cool and they journey to go see the other elves…" Edward trailed off as Jasper pushed play on movie.

Seeing as the boys were once again engrossed in their movie, I headed to the kitchen to find Esme slaving away on a roast with all of the fixings. "Smells wonderful," I said coming up behind her and wrapping my arms around her, before kissing her just below the ear.

"Thanks. Dinner will be ready in another ten minutes," she said pulling away from me to stir the gravy.

I stayed in the kitchen and asked about her day with the boys, while I watched her cook. Edward had not been too much of a pain when she was working this morning. But she got more work done after she picked Jasper up from school, because he took over entertaining Edward. The two of them had spent the entire afternoon going over that movie, bit by bit.

As she talked, I kept thinking back to the comment Edward had made in the car the night before: that the four of us should move in together. I wanted to talk about it in private, so I waited until after we finished dinner and the boys went back to their movie to bring the subject up. "Listen Esme, I've been thinking about what Edward said in the car yesterday about us moving in together," I said as we were loading the dishwasher.

"Oh," Esme replied startled. "What have you been thinking about it?"

"Well, it was a good idea. You and Jasper moving in with me would make a lot of sense. I love having the two of you around and spending time with you and we see each other almost every day anyway. My house is plenty big enough. You could remodel it for me and have room for your own office.

"Our boys get along like brothers and it would give them someone to play with. With one, they are always bored, but two can entertain themselves. And it is good for them to know that they are not alone and there are other boys out there that are different. Sick days and working off hours would be easier in a two parent household.

"But most importantly, I love you with all my heart and never want to be apart from you again," I concluded taking her into my arms.

"I love you too," she replied kissing me.

"That being said, I do not want you to move in with me: we are not married and it would look very improper to our boys. We need to set an example for them."

"Oh, okay. I thought you were going to go the other way with that speech," she said pulling back from our kiss.

"Oh I am," I said bending down on one knee and pulling out the small ring box I had in my pants pocket. It was my mother's ring, so when I decided to ask Esme this morning, I retrieved it from my safe for tonight. "Esme Anne Platt, will you marry me?"

"Yes!" she screamed as tears fell from her eyes.

I slipped the ring with the large solitaire diamond onto her ring finger, took her hand in mine, and kissed her deeply and passionately. "I know this is happening quickly, but I already know that you are the only one for me. You are the only one I want to spend the rest of my life with. I want to grow old with you by my side as we watch our boys grow up into strong men," I said breaking the kiss.

"I do too," she said before once again pressing her lips to mine. "You are the only man I ever want to kiss for the rest of my life."

"Gross!" Edward exclaimed as he and Jasper walked into the kitchen, effectively killing the moment.

"Why are you crying Auntie?" Jasper asked.

"Well Uncle Carlisle just asked me to marry him. I'm crying because I'm so happy and we are going to be a real family," she replied picking him up and setting him on the counter.

I did the same with Edward, setting him down right next to Jasper as he asked, "Are you sure about this Dad? You know I love Mom and all, but you don't have to do this just for me."

"I'm sure Tink. I told you: I'll deal with the relationship with the girl, you only need to worry about your relationship with your mom," I reassured him. "I think I'm going to like having a wife."

"Well I think it's romantic!" Jasper exclaimed hugging Esme. "And we can move into the great big house and live happily ever after."

"But he has to kiss her!" Edward retorted.

"And what is so wrong with kissing me young man?" Esme asked leaning over and stealing a kiss from his cheek.

"Nothing Mom. Not when you do it like that: but Dad has to kiss you on the lips. That's icky," he answered.

"My parents used to kiss like that," Jasper defended.

"Mine too, but still!"

"Well at least we won't have to worry about Edward kissing girls or boys on the lips anytime soon," I said, making sure to keep it gender neutral.

Edward turned bright red in response to my comment and exclaimed, "You won't catch me kissing an icky girl! Girls are moms."

"And boys are dads," Jasper countered, as if Edward's reply made sense to him.

"Whatever; just don't do the kissing in front of me!" Edward exclaimed crossing his arms.

"There is going to have to be some kissing in front of you Tink," I said leaning over to give Esme a kiss.

"Ew!"

"Yes, in the wedding ceremony, the two people getting married have to kiss," Esme informed him, again trying to keep it gender neutral.

"I guess…"

"And you will have to be there young man, because I want you to be my flower boy," I said pointing at Edward's chest.

"Me? Really?" he asked surprised.

"Yes you. But we will have to go shopping for a flower boy dress…" I trailed off suggestively.

"And we will have to get a tux for Jazz while we are at it: I want him to be my ring bearer," Esme said looking at Jasper.

"Really? I get to be in the wedding too?" he asked surprised.

"Yes: I could not forget my main man on my special day," Esme answered hugging Jasper.

"But then I can't ask him to be my best man… Oh well, I guess I will have to go with my runner up," I teased. "Good thing Charlie likes me."

"What about your cousins? I should probably ask the four women to be in my bridal party: I don't have any female relatives left," Esme said.

She must have seen the pictures of us all from Thanksgiving and mistaken my elderly cousins for my age, given how young they looked. "Well it's up to you, but they would probably be more comfortable sitting down, as they are getting up there in years. I think you should meet them first, before the wedding. Edward and I are still on to go to Alaska for Easter; you and Jasper are welcome to come if you can get away," I offered.

"No, I have a big meeting set that week. I'm just finishing the museum project, but then I have nothing lined up but to work on your place until that meeting the day after Easter. I really need that gig so I have work this spring," she replied.

"I know: why don't I ask them to come down here for Easter? We can still spend the week together, but they can meet you and spend time with you on the days you are off. Plus I can watch Jasper for you."

"Are you sure Dad? They give nice presents, but they are kind of creepy and I don't want them to scare Mom off before you trap her into the marriage," Edward said.

"What makes you think I'm trying to trap your mother into marrying me Tink?" I asked.

"Why else would two people get married?" Edward shrugged.

"Because they love each other," Esme answered and Jasper started giggling.

"What's so funny young man?" I asked Jasper.

"It's because they want to have sex!"

Esme, Edward, and I both gasped. Jasper was still giggling when I asked, "And what do you know about sex?"

"Married people do it in a bed," he said shrugging in between fits of giggles.

"Do what?" Edward asked perplexed.

"I don't know, but it's dirty like farting," Jasper replied giggling.

"And how do you know about this?" Esme asked.

"I saw it on TV and asked Peter."

"Is it dirty like kissing?" Edward asked Jasper.

"It starts with kissing, but Peter said it's dirtier."

"How does Peter know all of this?" I asked Esme.

"I don't know, but I'll ask their grandparents. Peter is a bit older: he is going to be eleven in two weeks. He probably had sex-ed at school."

"Jasper, when did Peter tell you this stuff about sex?" I asked and he stopped giggling.

"I told you, when we were watching TV on Thanksgiving. Am I in trouble?"

"No, you aren't in trouble. We're just concerned because you know all of this and you are only seven," I reassured him. "Now let's go out to celebrate! Who wants pie?"

"I do!" Jasper exclaimed eagerly.

"I want ice cream!" Edward exclaimed.

"Well we can get both pie and ice cream at the shop down the street. Let's go," Esme replied.

The four of us put on our coats and walked down the block, hand in hand, to the little mom and pop shop on the corner. They sold their own ice cream, which they made right in the shop, and the boys spent twenty minutes looking through the glass at the process. Plus, they sold homemade pie, so Jasper was happy.

And with the boys entertained, Esme and I had time to ourselves to talk about wedding plans. We had been together just five months, but we did not want to have a long engagement. So we decided on a date in October, thinking that it would give us plenty of time to plan the wedding. And her best friends from out of State would have to fly in, as well as our respective families.

Plus our families had not even met, so we would have to work on that. Esme would meet my family this spring when they came down for Easter, so I suggested that we all go to Texas this summer to meet hers. I was sure Edward would get a kick out of seeing a rodeo, riding a horse, and seeing real Texas sun shine- they just do not make it right up north. So I thought a summer vacation was just what our new family needed.

Esme thought a vacation in Texas was a great idea, so we agreed to both look into taking the time off from work. We would have stayed up all night deciding on wedding plans, but it was a school night and we needed to get the children to bed. We each had to go home to our respective houses, without getting the chance to celebrate our impending nuptials in the bedroom. This was exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to avoid by a marriage.

So at seven O'clock, I strapped a sleepy Edward into the car for our trip back to Forks. He was asleep by the time I finished the hour drive, so I carried him in and laid him down on his bed. I did not want to disturb him to change him, but he had not brushed his teeth yet. And he did eat pie and ice cream for dessert, so I brought a glass of water and his tooth brush and toothpaste into his bedroom for him. I woke him up just enough to make him take the brush from me.

Once he had spit back into the same cup of water, I sat it down and quickly stripped him. I slipped a nightgown over his head, before finally letting him lie back down. His eyes were closed even while he brushed, so I was not sure if he would even remember this in the morning. Then I cleaned up the mess I had made in his room, putting the dirty clothes and toothbrush away, before heading to the living room to make a few phone calls.

The first person I called was cousin Eleazar, but he quickly passed the phone around to Irina, Kate, Tanya, and Carmen. They each congratulated me and wished me the best. They also all agreed to switch our plans for Easter and fly down to meet my bride to be. Tanya and Kate even offered to plan our entire wedding for us, which I declined. I would ask Esme if they could help, but that was her decision to make, not mine. A wedding should be the bride's to plan and make into her dream come true.

The second call I made was to Charlie, who readily agreed to be my best man. He was extremely happy for me and Esme and said that he would not miss my wedding for the world. He really was my best friend. I would have to ask Esme to find a place for his Bella in the wedding party. Now all that was left was to call all of my old med school friends and my friends from the hospital.


	11. Chapter 10

Esme must have had the same idea as me, because the next morning she called with news: her only remaining family was coming up to meet me for Easter. I was worried about overcrowding my place at first, as my five living relatives were also coming, but Esme explained that this meant all of two people were coming. Her cousin Hank was coming and he would bring little Peter with him.

Jasper and Peter's remaining grandparents were on their dad's side of the family, so they were not related to Esme and would not be coming. And although they would not be coming for Easter, they did agree to fly up for the wedding in October. And since Esme's family was small in the first place, and her sister and parents were deceased, this left cousin Hank and Peter. Two additional people for Easter should not be too bad.

Esme also informed me that her best friends Shannon, Linda, and Hillarie had agreed to fly in for the wedding. My friends from med school, Alex and Daniel, had said that they would fly in as well. And when I got to work and made my announcement, my nurses Donna and Jill, along with my boss, Karen all said they would not miss it for the world. But after that, I took a step back and looked at the guest list: it was already quiet large and Esme and I had just wanted to have a small little wedding.

Our number one reason for not wanting to invite the whole town was that Edward would be wearing a dress. It was our wedding and we wanted our children, as is, in it. But we did not want to out Edward as a cross-dresser in the process. I knew that he would love nothing more than to prance around in a dress at our wedding in front of the whole world, but I was thinking about his safety, which was something he did not even understand.

When I called Esme and told her my concerns, she agreed that we should pretty much freeze the guest list as is, because we had already invited our families and closest friends. No one else really needed to be there. So from then on, when we told our acquaintances our news, we made sure to mention that it was going to be a private affair, with family only.

But the whole incident got us thinking about Edward's future: we were not going to be able to hide his cross-dressing forever. We did not even want to. It would be easier for everyone if everyone knew. But cross-dressing was dangerous, because of its association with homosexuality. As long as he was cross-dressing there would always be a risk that he would run into a homophobe while wearing a dress and be beaten or seriously injured, so Esme and I agreed that Edward needed to learn how to defend himself.

I told Esme of Edward's refusal to take karate classes and she agreed to talk to him for me. That night, after Edward's ballet class, the four of us went back to my place with our take-out Chinese food, and Esme sat my son down for a mother-son chat. I sat next to her with Jasper on my lap as she explained to Edward that there were people out there that would hurt him if they found out he wore dresses.

Esme went into more detail than I would have. I actually thought her description of all the bad things that could happen was quite graphic; especially for my sweet little boy. I had always just said that someone might hurt him and left it at that. But Esme told my son that people might beat him up, attack him with a weapon such as a knife, or even try to rape him. Edward did not even know what the word rape meant, but he did after Esme finished her talk. He was crying by the time Esme was done with him.

Then she told him that he needed to be able to defend himself, so if anyone tried to hurt him, he would know what to do. I had said this same thing before, but only now did he understand why. Esme said that she was signing both him and Jasper up for karate; no arguments allowed. Edward was frightened and crying, so he just nodded his head. Even I was frightened by the detail that Esme had given him: I would have never thought to lay it all out on the table like that. Edward was just a boy and I had been trying to protect him from the ugly truths of the world.

So now Saturday afternoon karate classes in Port Angeles were added to our weekly schedules. And wedding plans and Easter arrangements filled the rest of our free time. We decided that for Easter, Peter and Hank would squeeze into Esme's apartment, while my five cousins would stay at my place. Adding in five more people to my place would be hard, but Esme had submitted the last of her work for the museum, and was now free to work on renovating my place full-time.

If she finished just two rooms, then Tanya, Irina, and Kate could share. But if she only finished one room, I would give up my room and bunk with Edward for the week. There were plenty of antique furnishings upstairs, so about ninety percent of the job was to repair the holes in the floor and replace the crumbling dry wall. All of which was doable in the allotted time frame.

Esme had other plans for the second floor besides just putting in the minimum amount of repairs to make it livable. She wanted to add a few walls and take out dozens of ceiling length bookshelves to turn what had been a large library into three huge bedrooms. She wanted to turn what once was a darkroom for developing pictures into a bathroom for the three bedrooms. And she wanted to convert the large sewing room into a fourth bedroom. Plus she wanted to remodel the master bed and bath, which were huge.

Once this work was complete, she wanted to redecorate the place with as many of the restored original pieces as possible, but add a modern touch. By the time this was done and the five bedrooms on the second floor were ready for move-in, I fully expected to be married with a wife and two children. Esme and I would take the new master bedroom, while Edward and Jasper would each get their own rooms, leaving two remaining rooms on the second floor.

Esme said that we would move our offices into the two remaining rooms, while she remodeled the downstairs. I did not even want to think about her plans for the downstairs, as it was all just too much renovation for my overly stressed mind to handle. I trusted that Esme had it covered and that was enough for me. For now, all I needed to know was that Esme was fixing the floor and the walls and moving four antique beds, which had come with the house, into the old master bedroom and sewing room upstairs. Add some fresh sheets and blankets for the beds, put in new plumbing in the bathroom, and we were done. At least I thought we should be, but Esme kept running around up there working on something. Do not ask me what.

Preparations for the holiday were so time-consuming that I was looking forward to getting the whole thing over with and was rather relieved when the Friday before Easter arrived. Esme, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck because that was the day Hank and Peter were flying in. I had to work, so Esme took the boys with her to the airport. The five of them were to go back to her place afterwards, so I headed straight to Port Angeles as soon as my shift ended.

When I arrived at her place, Esme greeted me and introduced me to Hank. Hank was a rancher, complete with cowboy hat and boots. He had Esme's brown hair and eyes, but he had a much darker complexion from being out in the sun all day. He told me a little about life on his ranch, while I told him about the medical emergency we had had today: three traffic accidents due to the rain.

Truthfully, I was getting a little bored talking to Cousin Hank while Esme cooked, so I was quite glad when three little boys came running into the living room. Edward threw himself into my arms for a hug, while Jasper stood back politely for his hug, and Peter stood just behind him with his hand out to shake. Peter was a foot and a half taller than Jasper, with bright blue eyes instead of brown, and short straight blond hair instead of Jasper's wavy mop. But besides that, they looked like they could be twins.

"This is Jasper's brother Peter!" Edward exclaimed and he moved over.

I hugged Jasper and reached my hand out to Peter saying, "Hi, I'm Edward's dad. But you can call me Uncle Carlisle. It is really nice to meet you Peter."

"Nice to meet you too Sir," Peter replied like a proper little gentleman. But that image was ruined by Jasper, who jumped on Peter's back and put him into a head-lock before anyone could even realize what was happening.

"Esme said no rough housing in the house boys!" Hank was the first to respond.

"They have been doing that all day!" Edward exclaimed looking at the two brothers go at it. "I thought Jasper was going to get hurt, but he won almost every single fight today!"

"Isn't Peter eleven now? Shouldn't he know better than to fight with his little brother?" I asked Hank. Jasper was only seven, after all.  
>"Nah, Jasper starts it. Now get to the yard outside boys," Hank replied opening the front door and ushering the boys out. Peter walked out, and since Jasper was on his shoulders at the time, he went with him.<p>

"I don't want to watch anymore Daddy. I keep getting scared Jasper is going to get hurt and then Jasper just keeps bringing Peter down," Edward said as we watched Hank go outside after the boys.

"Well then let's go help Mom with dinner," I suggested leading Edward into the kitchen.

Esme was almost done, so Edward and I made some pudding and set it in the fridge.

"Go bring the boys back in the house, while Edward helps me set the table," Esme instructed me once the pudding was done.

"Sure honey," I said kissing her cheek.

I went outside and found the two boys and cousin Hank on the lawn in the middle of Esme's apartment complex. I arrived just in time to see Jasper force his older and much larger brother down to the ground. "This boy is going to be a champion wrestler, I tell you what," Hank greeted me.

"Where did you learn to do that?" I asked Jasper amazed.

Jasper just shrugged and let Peter up, but Peter answered for him, "We've been rough housing like that since he was a baby. He is just a natural."

"You should put the boy in classes and train him up a bit," Hank suggested.

"We will have to look for wrestling classes," I conceded. "But Esme said it is time for dinner. You boys need to go inside and wash up."

"Do we have to Uncle Carlisle?" Jasper whined.

"Just do what you are told for once Jazz," Peter complained popping Jasper on the back of the head. That probably was not the best move for Peter, because he was on his back in the dirt before I realized what happened.

"Knock it off Jasper. We all know you can flip your brother. Now let's go inside to eat," Hank ordered as we once again headed towards Esme's apartment. "Sorry about that. This is the first time Jasper has been big enough to bring Peter down like that and I'm afraid he's showing off a little."

"Pay back for all those times Peter used to beat him up when he was little?" I asked.

"Darwin no!" Jasper shouted. "I always won!"

"He did. But it wasn't until this year that Jazz could flip Pete single handedly," Hank added. Oh, that must have been what Jasper had done to Peter.

I looked over at the boys and this time I saw Peter giving Jasper a piggy-back ride. At least they were no longer fighting and looked somewhat civilized as they entered the apartment. I sent them both straight off to wash their hands, while I joined Esme in bringing out the roast. The six of us had a nice dinner and I got to know Jasper's brother and Esme's cousin a bit.

But I was exhausted from the long day of work, so I took Edward home early that night. The next day was Saturday and I wanted to give Esme and Jasper some time alone with their family, because they were flying back Monday. But when I was thinking about what to do, I was shocked to realize that somehow Esme and I had fallen out of our routine of taking the boys to therapy on Saturday mornings. We had just become so busy that neither of us had been in months.

So I loaded Edward into the car and took us to therapy. We had not been since before the engagement, so I had news to share with everyone when I returned. Everyone was really happy for us, but wanted to know where my bride to be was. I explained that she was with relatives visiting from out of town and all of the fellow parents told me to send her their congratulations on the engagement.

My therapists even told me that she was happy for Esme and me; she just wished that the four of us would show up to therapy a little more often. I told her we would make more of an effort, but we were busy with work, wedding plans, and remodeling my house to fit a family of four, so not to expect too much. After that she got into her evaluation of my life.

My therapist told me that I was rushing the wedding thing, because Esme and I had not even known each other a year. I really did not care what she had to say on this matter for three reasons. One, I loved Esme and knew that we were going to be together forever. Two, we had two children who would both be better off with two parents: Jasper needed a father figure, while Edward needed a mother. And three, I wanted biological children of my own and I did not want to wait and allow the age gap between possible future children and our current children to grow.

I told my therapist all of this, but she had other thoughts on the matter, which I tuned out, because I really did not want to hear it. I was also disappointed with her advice on parenting this week, because she once again told me to stop spoiling the kids rotten. Like I said before, spoiling the kids was really working for me, so I choose to ignore this week's advice, yet again. No wonder I had stopped coming here: it had stopped being useful.

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><p>Author's Note: Review, please? Pretty please?<p> 


	12. Chapter 11

The next day was Easter, so Esme and the gang showed up bright and early to cook. The three boys went outside and Henry from next door came over, so that made four boys. They started playing football, which Edward grudgingly joined, although I could tell he wished they would play something else. After half an hour I took mercy on Edward and sent Hank outside with a container of baseball equipment, which Edward only enjoyed marginally more.

As soon as the ham was in the oven, I left Esme, Hank, and the kids to drive in to Port Angeles. I had to pick up my cousins from the airport, whose flight was scheduled to get in a few hours before dinner. I offered Edward a chance to escape his baseball torment by accompanying me, but for some reason he refused. I was sure he was going to sneak off and play Barbies while I was away.

My cousins' flight was right on time and they all greeted me with hugs. We talked a lot on our hour drive back home, but not a lot had changed in their lives. In fact, nothing at all had changed, as usual. My cousins led very boring lives up in Alaska. We spent most of the drive talking about all the changes that had been taking place in my life.

When I pulled up to the house, the boys, including Edward and Hank, were still playing in the yard, but Henry had already left. His parents must have come for him while I was out. I waved to them to come over and meet my cousins and they all started to walk in my direction. I heard Jasper say, "They look kind of like Maria," as Tanya, Kate and Irina all stepped out of my car.

But moments later, when Carmen and Eleazar exited the vehicle, Jasper shouted, "Darwin! Run Edward, run!" before taking off into the woods.

I was not sure what was going on, but Edward followed Jasper into the woods right away while Peter and Hank just looked confused. "Do any of you know what is going on?" I asked as the two parties continued to walk towards each other.

"She looks like someone we know in Texas," Peter said pointing to Carmen. "Pale skin, but with an olive complexion, and short. Do you have a relative named Maria?"

"No son, not that I know of. But I am from Spain and there are lots of women who look like me there," Carmen answered.

"With the glistening white teeth and the black as coal eyes?" Peter asked.

"Yes. My wife does have stunningly white teeth and gorgeous dark brown eyes, doesn't she?" Eleazar asked giving Carmen a hug.

I still was not sure what was going on and I was torn over what to do. I ought to have been introducing our two families and I wanted to continue to ask what everyone was talking about. But what I needed to do was find my boys before they got too far into the woods. "I'm going to go after the boys. Introduce yourselves and help yourself to my home," I instructed as I took off in the direction I had seen Jasper and Edward run.

I was hoping they had stuck to the trail as I taught them to do every Sunday afternoon when we went jogging together. And this was the path we always took. Edward at least should be old enough to stick to the trail, I hoped. But I was jogging along for quite a ways with no sign of the boys. I was about to pull out my cell phone and call for help searching the woods when I finally heard their whispered voices.

I followed the sound of Edward's voice and found the two boys hiding behind a log just off of the trail. "Why did you two run?" I asked as I cornered them.

"I ran after Jasper. At first I was scared because he told me to run. And then I did not want to leave him in the forest, so I stayed with him and I have been trying to figure out why we are hiding," Edward answered.

"We are hiding because Maria's men were in your car," Jasper accused me.

"They are my cousins and they don't know this Maria. Who is Maria?" I asked concerned. Even if someone named Maria was in my car or knew my cousins, there was still no excuse for Jasper to run away like that.

"Maria is a lady back in Texas that Peter and I know. She lived down the street from us and was really scary."

"Scary how?" I asked.

"She used to grab me and Peter and smell us if we played too close to her house. She said we smelled delicious. And she always knew we were there, even if we didn't make a sound. And she said that when we grew up, she was going to marry us and keep us for her own," Jasper answered.

I was a little concerned about the smelling the kids part, but this story sounded too surreal to be true. I had a feeling that Peter had just made it all up to scare the boy. I would want to scare him too if he was always beating me in wrestling like that. Besides, Peter had not run and was not scared. So I brushed off Jasper's story and said, "Well this is not Maria, these are my cousins and they don't smell or marry little boys. Now let's get you two back home before Esme has a heart attack."

"See I told you your cousins were scary," Edward replied as I picked Jasper up and began to carry him back with Edward by my side.

As we walked, I pulled out my cell and called Esme to let her know I had found the boys and that we were on our way back. She had been thinking the worst and had called the police, but our police station only has too police officers. Charlie was out of town, taking Bella to visit her mother, while his deputy was probably home with his own family. She had left a message, so I told her to call back and say it was a false alarm, so that no one would have to leave their Easter dinner on our account.

By the time the two of us made it back out of the woods, Esme was already serving dinner. There goes our hour to introduce everyone first. We had too many people to accommodate at my dining room table, so Hank and I had set up a buffet table outside earlier. It was right in front of the rose garden Esme had helped me and the boys plant last month, and the roses were in bloom, so it was quite lovely.

We had a nice dinner and then everyone talked for a few hours more as we watched the football game. I would have thought Jasper would have been watching the game with Peter, as he loves football, but he went off to play with Edward in the bedroom. I was a bit surprised that all of the women stayed to watch as well, as none of my cousins have ever had the slightest inclination towards football before. But I guessed that they were just trying to be sociable with the future in-laws.

After the game, Esme and I gave everyone a tour of the house and showed my cousins where they would be staying. Irina, Kate, and Tanya would be sharing the master bedroom, while Carmen and Eleazar would take the refurbished sewing room. Tanya took me aside and confided that the master bedroom had once been Eleazar and Carmen's, and whenever the three sisters had visited, they had each been given a guestroom downstairs. No wonder the three sisters kept snickering.

And by that time, it was already late and Esme had a meeting the next morning, so she excused herself and left with Jasper, Peter, and Hank. I would have to get up early the next morning to watch Jasper for Esme, as well as drop Hank and Peter back off at the airport, because she needed to concentrate on her meeting. So I put Edward to bed, but told my cousins that they could stay up as late as they wished and to make themselves at home. I heard them walking upstairs as I was brushing my teeth, so I figured they were turning in early after an exhausting plane ride.

In the morning, Edward and I woke up to freshly squeezed orange juice and bagels with cream cheese ready to go, courtesy of Kate and Irina. I offered Edward the chance to stay here with my cousins, but he declined saying that he wanted to see Peter again. I did not think that he and Peter had particularly bonded, but maybe I was wrong.

When Edward and I arrived at Esme's place, she was buzzing around like a lost bee, so I took her in my arms and said, "Relax. Everything is going to be fine. Even if you do not get this job, another will come along, and until then, I still need you to work on my place. Besides, they are going to love you. Just grab your portfolio and go."

"I know; you're right. Thank you Carlisle, I love you," she said kissing me before grabbing her portfolio. "Mommy loves you too, Edward." Here she stopped to kiss Edward's forehead. "And tell Jasper I love him when he wakes up. He and Peter were up all night."

"We will be fine, so don't worry about us. Bye my love," I said as she hesitated at the door. "And I love you too." And with that, she was gone and I was left to handle both families by myself.

Luckily Jasper, Peter, and Hank all did sleep in until it was almost time to leave. I woke them up, sat that boys down to eat, and helped Hank pack their few belongings all in record time. And before I knew it, the five of us were at the airport and I was witnessing one of the most heart-wrenching goodbyes I had ever seen. It made me wish that Esme and I could take Peter too. I was more than sure that we would be able to take care of the boy, but would his grandparents let us have him?

"Now you be good Jazz," Peter said hugging Jasper with tears in his eyes. "I don't want to hear any reports back from Aunt Esme about you not behaving. You have a really great family here, so I want you to be happy here with them. I know they love you just as much as I do."

Jasper did not even say anything is response; he just nodded as the tears streamed down his cheeks. After that Hank hugged Jasper and told him how much he loved him. And then Esme's only remaining family got on that plane and flew back to Texas. I pulled Jasper's hand to get him to come with me back to the car, but he just stood there and cried, so I picked him up and carried him back to the car, with Edward holding my free hand.

I took the boys back to my place and was rather grateful when my cousins realized that this was a hard day for Jasper and gave him a wide berth. Jasper spent most of the day reading in Edward's room, while Edward actually came out to talk to my cousins. He greeted them and then sat down on the loveseat, as far from my cousins as possible.

"I know what you want," Eleazar teased. "You are waiting to see if we brought any presents for you."

"Um, no?" Edward lied poorly.

"Well we did, but we also brought some for Jasper. So you have to wait until he feels up to it young man," he replied.

"I know: there were some old games we left here when we moved. Maybe you could pull them out Carlisle and we could teach Edward!" Carmen suggested.

"He is just a boy. Boys today don't want to play chest or checkers Carmen!" Tanya reprimanded. "I know: is that old piano still around?"

"Yes, I moved it to the garage, but it needs to be tuned. Bad," I answered. I was pretty sure it was broken for that matter.

"That's okay. Let's go to the garage and fix it up!" Kate suggested.

"Don't worry Edward, we will be back with a super cool piano for you to play with," Irina said as my five cousins got up and went to the garage.

Carmen came back five minutes later and asked to borrow my car so that they could go to the store to get a few things for the piano, so I handed her my keys before going to check on Jasper. Edward followed at my elbow.

"Are you okay Jazz?" Edward asked as he peeked out from behind my elbow.

"I know you miss Peter. Do you want to talk about it?" I asked sitting down on Edward's bed and pulling Jasper into my arms.

Jasper shook his head and Edward cuddled up next to me. The three of us stayed like that even when I heard my cousins come back into the house an hour later. It sounded like they were moving furniture around, but even then the three of us stayed curled around each other on Edward's bed. It was not until Kate came in and announced that the piano was ready that we moved.

Edward jumped off the bed and ran into the living room before anyone could tell him twice. "Come on Jazz," I said pulling Jasper along behind me. The couches in the living room had all been pushed aside, while the piano had been restored to its original locale in the center of the room.

I sat down on one of the couches and pulled Jasper into my lap as Tanya and Kate began to play. Not only had they fixed and tuned the old piano, but they had also washed it; it now was so shiny that I could see my reflection in the glossy black surface. It actually looked like something I would be proud to have in my living room.

It did not take Kate and Tanya long to convince Edward to sit down in the middle of them, so that they could teach him to play. By the end of the hour, my boy was begging to switch from ballet classes to piano lessons. I told him I would look into it, but I was just secretly grateful that he had finally warmed up to my cousins.

Just as the piano entertainment was winding down, Esme arrived with good news: she got the restoration job. So she went into the kitchen to fix us all a celebratory dinner while I entertained the guests. Or rather, I supervised while the guests entertained the boys: they finally brought out their presents now that Jasper had a smile on his face again.

Jasper received more books, but this time they were rare history books from bygone areas. They were a bit worn and tattered, but Jasper loved them all the more for it. And Edward received a voucher for a year's worth of piano lessons as well as a large stack of sheet music. No wonder they had suggested to get the old piano out of the garage: Edward would need something to practice on.

The next few days went well with Jasper, Esme, and Edward getting to know my cousins. My four female cousins even offered to help with the wedding. In fact, they not only offered to help but to plan and pay for the entire thing. Esme agreed that they could help, but did not want them to completely take it over. Then the five women went off talking about wedding plans and restoration plans for my house for the rest of the week.

Eleazar spent his time pulling old things out of the garage and the attic and showing the boys how they worked. There was everything from an antique camera to a gramophone to an antique radio. There were in fact enough trinkets around the house that I was certain we could open up a museum if we wanted to.

Edward was especially interested in the gramophone, while Jasper loved the ginormous book collection from the old library. We had been planning on donating it to a museum, but now Esme planned on remodeling the attic into a library to house most of the books. But what really got the boys' attention were the antique swords. Eleazar brought down a collection of ancient swords from the attic and the boys drooled over them for hours. They spent so much time looking at them, that Esme decided to use them to decorate our mantel. In fact, Esme fell in love with most everything Eleazar brought out, so her biggest problem was deciding where to put each precious piece of history in our home.

Everything was fine until Wednesday: Edward woke up with a cold. It was just a cold, but I was still worried, so I made him lie in bed. My cousins were more than eager to wait on him hand and foot, but then Friday morning came and I had to take them back to the airport. Esme had not begun work on the new project yet, so I had her stay over at my house and watch him while I was at the airport.

But when I came back, Edward was coughing even worse and his fever had risen, despite the Tylenol I had given him. After a quick examination I was sure: what had been a simple common cold had opened the flood-gates for bacterial pneumonia. Edward had gotten it before, as he was always getting sick, but not since I had adopted him. So I rushed him straight to the hospital and may even have overreacted a bit. Esme did tell me to calm down and breathe more than a few times.

I am not sure what I would have done if I had lost my Edward, but thankfully the antibiotics kicked in and I did not have to face that possibility. Edward was in the hospital for two weeks as he recovered, and when I finally got to bring him home, I was just as happy as I had been that first time I had brought him home, almost a year ago. Edward being so sick really put my life into perspective for me. No matter how much I loved my job, without Edward, Esme, and Jasper, I would be lost. I do not know how I managed before I had them, because now I can not even picture it.

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><p>Author's Note: I know some of you wanted to see Esme's reaction to the vampires, but she really didn't have one- she's met Maria too.<p> 


	13. Chapter 12

When I finally got a chance to talk to Esme alone I asked her about the possibility of adopting Peter too and told her that I did want more children. She agreed that she also wanted more children and would take him if she could. But her brother-in-law's will clearly stated that his parents were to take both children. She had only gotten custody of Jasper when his grandparents could not handle him. And there was no way that they were willing to give up Peter too: she had already asked.

So I was a little bit concerned over what type of people I was going to be meeting on our up-coming trip to Texas. We had decided to go in late June, because I had already requested the week off for Edward's birthday. This way we were killing two birds with one stone and could celebrate on location. And I was sure Edward would enjoy a cowboy themed party on a real ranch with live horses.

Edward was really looking forward to his birthday trip to Texas, but not as much as Jasper: he was bouncing in his seat the entire flight over, which was very atypical behavior for him. I never would have thought Jasper would be the one to disturb the other passengers on the plane, but he was. Edward just sat there quietly watching the inflight movie.

Peter and a very old couple were there to greet us at the baggage claim. Esme introduced them as Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock, Jasper and Peter's grandparents. Jasper ran up to them immediately and gave them a hug, but then he jumped on Peter's back and started chattering his brother's ear off. Also unusual behavior for our boy, but I guess he must have been extremely excited to be back in Texas with his family. Peter even commented on it saying, "Calm down Jazz! You act like you never see me. You are going to be here a whole week!"

Right as our bags arrived, Hank and his girlfriend showed up, because it turns out that none of them had enough room in their cars for all of us and our luggage. So Jasper climbed in the Whitlock's car with his grandparents, while Esme, Edward, and I piled into the back of Hank's car. We went first to Hanks ranch, where we would be staying, to drop off our luggage, before heading over to the Whitlock's house.

On the twenty minute drive over, Hank explained that the Platt family had owned his ranch for hundreds of years. Esme and her late sister Stephanie had grown up just ten minutes from the old ranch. Stephanie was Esme's older sister and had met Andrew Whitlock in high school, as all the kids from this area went to the same school. Andrew and Stephanie had married right out of college and Peter was on the way before they even got back from their honeymoon.

It was a cute story, with a very tragic end, so Esme quickly changed the subject as we turned onto the Whitlock's street. They lived on a small winding road with several neighboring houses scattered along the street. As we drove down it, Esme pointed out the house that used to belong to Jasper and his family: it was a simple two story white house with a bed of roses outside and a tire swing in the yard. It looked like a nice place for two boys to grow up. She said there was even a little stream that flowed behind the house that the boys used to play in.

Then we continued down the lane for another five minutes before we reached the large old red house at the end. This house looked much more dilapidated than the others we had passed on the road. It was on a relatively small spit of land, despite the house's size, with only enough room for a garden and a chicken coop. But there was no stream outside of this house or a tire swing in this yard, or anything else to show that a little boy lived here, except the bike chained to the garage. The grass was even dead and depressing.

As soon as we arrived, Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock gave us a tour of the house: they had plenty of rooms, but only three were set up with beds: Peter's room, the master bedroom, and a guestroom. Jasper would be staying in the guest room, while we stayed at Hank's. The rest of their rooms were set up as hobby rooms. There was a quilting room, a scrapbooking room, a model train room, a civil war battlefield room, et cetera. Apparently civil war history ran in the family, because there was a bookshelf devoted solely to that subject.

While Esme, Hank, and I made small talk with the Whitlocks, the three boys went outside to play. After an hour, we checked with Jasper to make sure he was going to be okay staying here, and then we left and went to Hank's ranch. His house was much more what I had pictured a house in Texas to be. It was on a large piece of land, complete with a barn full of horses and cows. They even had a field where they were growing corn and a small garden by the house full of ripe tomatoes.

Edward loved the Platt Ranch right away and his favorite part was the horses, of course. He spent the majority of that trip riding the horses, talking about riding the horses, or trying to convince Hank or Esme to take him out to ride the horses. I was really glad that he liked the horses so much, because that was the main event at his ninth birthday party later in the week.

While Edward, Esme, and I spent most of the time at Hank's house, Jasper spent most of his time at the Whitlock's, at first that was. They did get sick of him and his rough housing after a few days- apparently he broke a vase- so they sent him back to Hank's with us. This time, Peter came too, so all of the boys were together again.

And when Friday rolled around, we threw Edward the most awesome cowboy themed birthday party on that ranch. Peter was still over and Hank had invited all of Jasper's old school friends, so there was a good group of little boys for the celebration. Jasper did not freak out, because he already knew all of these boys. And they were only two year's younger than Edward, so he had fun as well.

All of the children had fun, because there was so much to do on the ranch. There were horses to ride and Hank and Esme lined up all of the kids to take turns riding the horses. I was really surprised by Peter's riding skills, because he did not need an adult to assist him at all. He even mounted the horse by himself. Apparently he had been doing it for years, so Esme was not even worried about setting Jasper up on the horse with Peter and letting the two boys ride around freely during the party. They were Platts after all, and Platts could ride horses in their sleep. At least that is what Peter kept trying to tell me.

After the horses, Hank brought out his lasso to show the boys some cool tricks. He even taught the boys a few simple tricks and they had a lassoing competition, which Peter won. I could tell by his familiarity with the place that Peter visited this ranch regularly. Hank told me that the Whitlocks let Peter visit almost every weekend. And Hank thought that it was important for the boy to learn the workings of the family ranch, so he was more than happy to spend time with him. After all, Peter was the only other Platt boy left in the State and he might as well pass on the family tradition to someone.

After the lassos, we had a piñata and cake and opened presents. We did not bring any of Edward's presents from home, because we did not want to carry them back on the plane. But he knew they were waiting for him when we returned. And he still got to open the presents from our guests as well as the two presents from Hank and Peter: a pair of cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. The guests mostly got him cars and action figures, which Edward does not play with, so I told him that we would donate them to the hospital and let him pick out whatever he wanted from the store.

The one thing Edward wanted for his birthday that he did not get was to wear a dress to that birthday party. This was not Forks we were in, but Texas where it was much more dangerous to be different. So we set a strict no dress rule while in Texas and refused to let him wear a dress for his birthday. We did not even allow him to bring one with us. Instead, for his birthday, Edward wore leather chaps over a pair of blue jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. He looked just like a real cowboy once he added his new hat and boots. He also matched Peter and Jasper who had worn similar attire.

At first, Edward had been a little apprehensive sporting his new cowboy dudes, but he had been wearing them all week by the time his birthday rolled around. I even caught him eyeing Hanks boots a couple of times and asking about them, which was the inspiration behind the birthday gifts. I never would have pictured Edward as the cowboy type, but add the hat and boots and some mud for the horses, and he really pulled it off. He did not even complain about the pants.

On Saturday, our last day there before we would have to return to Forks, Esme and I thought that we were in for a nice relaxing day lying back in the sun while the boys played on the ranch. But then the Whitlocks called and asked us to stop by so that they could spend another day with Jasper. So we all went over there and had an impromptu Texan barbeque.

Mrs. Whitlock had cut up a watermelon and made potato and macaroni salads, as well as jello. And Mr. Whitlock was barbequing steaks. I got my first real chance to get to know the Whitlocks that day, and when Esme said that the Whitlocks were elderly, she meant ancient. They were both in their mid-eighties: no wonder they could not handle two children. I was fairly certain the only reason they could handle Peter was that he was pretty self-sufficient for a child.

The Whitlocks had invited a few of the neighbors over, who started showing up after half an hour. They were all equally old, except for a couple our age who came with a blond girl Peter's age. The girl's name was Charlotte, and Jasper quickly caught on that she was special to Peter. "Peter's got a girlfriend!" he teased over and over again.

"Jasper, be nice," Esme scolded.

"Yes Auntie. Is Peter a good kisser?" Jasper asked politely. He said it so nicely it was hard to tell that he was still making fun of his brother. "With a blush like that he must be!"

But after that last comment, it was clear Jasper was indeed making fun of poor Peter, whose ears were flaming red with embarrassment. "Jasper, don't make me tell you again," Esme warned.

"Fine. But what good is Peter having a girlfriend if I can't ask her perfectly reasonable questions about their sex lives?" Jasper asked.

I was fairly certain that Jasper had no idea what he had said, but Esme put him on a timeout for it just the same. He probably picked up language like that from the television, so Esme and I would have to make more of an effort to control what he watches.

But time-out or no, the damage was already done, because Peter ran into the house covering his face. And Charlotte asked her parents if they could leave. They readily agreed, and who could blame them after what Jasper had said, but that still left Esme and I alone there with cousin Hank as the only non-geriatric or pediatric persons in attendance.

Esme knew most of these elderly people at our picnic, who all seemed genuinely excited and happy regarding our up-coming nuptials. So Esme and I got to talking about the wedding and we were so pre-occupied that we barely noticed when the kids went in the house. And when they did not come back, we figured that they had gone to apologize to Peter. But we did noticed when the three boys ran back into the yard at top speeds screaming. Edward ran straight into Esme's arms, while Jasper ran into mine, and Peter just stood in back of them panting.

"What happened?" Esme questioned the boys.

"Maria," Jasper answered still panting.

"We ran into Maria and she scared Jasper and Edward," Peter answered.

"What happened, Edward?" I questioned.

"Maria is way scarier than Cousin Carmen! She grabbed me and was sniffing my neck!" Edward exclaimed. That was twice now that one of the boys told me this Maria lady liked to sniff little boys' necks. I was starting to think we had a pedophile on our hands. "And she said she was going to marry me when I grow up!"

"It was not that bad! That is just how Maria is," Peter defended.

"Did she do it to you too?" Esme asked.

"No, just Jasper and Edward," Peter replied shrugging.

"Now don't go making a big deal out of nothing!" Mrs. Whitlock exclaimed coming over. "Maria has been part of this here neighborhood since you kids were babies. I don't want you starting rumors about her smelling people again. You know how much trouble you started last time Peter."

"Yes Ma'am," Peter replied looking guilty. So I had been right with my initial assumption back on Easter: Peter was behind these strange tales.

"What were you three doing out Maria's way anyway?" Mr. Whitlock asked.

"We went to say sorry to Peter and after that we went out to the front yard because Peter was going to show us some rocks," Jasper replied.

"And how did looking at rocks get you four miles down the way?" Mr. Whitlock asked.

"We didn't go to her place Grandpa, honest. We were just on the other side of the house when she came walking by," Peter answered.

"Well it's like I said, if you stay out of her way, she'll stay out of ours, so don't go making a nuisance of yourself," the old man replied.

After that Jasper and Edward both insisted that Peter had not made anything up and that Maria really did smell them, but it was already time for us to get going. So we all piled into the two cars again and headed to the airport. Once again, having to watch Jasper and Peter part was heartbreaking: in one way they were all they had left in this world, but they were almost never together.


	14. Chapter 13

Author's Note: I would once again like to thank my wonderful prereader, Master of the boot! I don't like to start posting something before I know how it will end and since this story is still not completely finished, I would never have published this story without him.

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><p>The next time Jasper saw Peter was for our wedding. Peter's grandparents let him take off a few days from school and the three of them flew up the Thursday before the wedding. Hank and his girlfriend, along with Esme's three girlfriends and my two friends all flew in Friday. Plus my cousins from Alaska flew in two weeks before the wedding, so we were having trouble with where to put all of the guests, because there are no hotels in Forks.<p>

By this time, Esme had finished the renovations on the second floor of my place, so we had five new bedrooms to work with. But Esme had already let her apartment go when the lease ran up in August, so we were down one apartment. Esme and I moved into the newly renovated master bedroom and Jasper and Peter bunked with Edward. Tanya, Kate, and Irina took one bedroom, Carmen and Eleazar a second, Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock a third, Hank and his girlfriend a fourth, and Esme's three girlfriends the fifth room. As for my two friends, Charlie let them crash with him, as my place was full. There were only a handful of guests from the local area that would not need a place to stay for the wedding; namely the Johansens from next door, my friends from work, and Jack and Alan, and their daughter Sarah, from group.  
>Having all of those guests under one roof made for very crowded living arrangements, but it was only until Saturday night: the wedding was scheduled for just before dusk Saturday evening. Esme was running around making preparations like a chicken with her head cut off. But luckily my four female cousins were there to help keep everything organized and running smoothly, which was one of the reasons they had arrived two weeks before the big day.<p>

The other reason my cousins had for coming early was to help Esme finish the last of the renovations to the second floor. The big problem was what to do with the aftermath of clearing all of the old antiques away. Esme had restored or refurbished a great deal of them and worked them into the new décor, but there had been an entire library up there before. We just did not have room for that many books; no matter how hard we tried to cram them into the attic.

Esme had remodeled the attic into the new library, turning it from a drafty inhospitable place for books, to a clean dry room with a controlled environment, as good for books as any common library. Eleazar and the others had helped move a dozen of the old bookshelves up to the attic, while Esme constructed several dozen more to fit the slopping roof. Then they had shifted through the books and selected several thousand to save up there.

But there had been tens of thousands of books on the second floor originally and we just could not keep them all. Many of them were falling apart from hundreds of years of neglect. So my cousins helped sort through the books and send them all off to good homes. The damaged ones went to museums and collectors who were willing to expend the effort of having the books restored. The books in better condition went to poorer libraries and museums around the world.

But it was not just books we had to give away: the house was filled with all kinds of other antiques. There was everything from a soda bottle to an old ink well to a nineteen fourteen Ford model T. Eleazar had uncovered the old car from the garage once Esme set him the task of cleaning said garage. So the car had to go and I would soon be parking my own vehicle in the area that had so long been used for storage.

I would be able to park my car in the garage already if Esme was not set on renovating the structure: she had plans of adding a loft and bathroom. The loft was for storage, while the bathroom was so that anyone working in the garage could wash-up before coming in the house. I thought that the bathroom was a bit unnecessary, because neither of us worked on cars. I always took my car to a shop for everything. But Esme insisted that with two young boys, we would one day be grateful for a bathroom they could use without tracking mud through the house, so I grudgingly agreed.

I was not sure how Esme and my cousins managed to put together a wedding in the mist of all these renovations, but somehow they managed. We were having the wedding at our house, in our living room, while the reception was going to be held on our side yard. The back yard could not be used because that was where the pool was and it was too cold to use the pool. But the side yard was huge, limited only by the encroaching forest, and was continuous with the front yard, where the food would be served.

As the wedding grew nearer, I saw the decorations taking shape, although my cousins were trying to keep them a surprise. I caught Tanya and Kate bringing into the garage what appeared to be several thousand flowers. When I tried to follow to see what they were up to, they just shooed me away saying that the garage was off limits until after the wedding. I caught Irina and Carmen with what looked to be several hundred candles as well as dozens of folding chairs and a few folding tables, before they too disappeared into the forbidden garage with their loot. And I saw Eleazar carrying into the garage what appeared to be an entire car full of groceries.

But all I ever caught Esme doing was ushering people into a room with garment bags and a seamstress. She must have been checking the final fitting on everyone's attire for the big day. I knew my tuxedo was perfect, as well as those of my groomsmen, because that was the one thing Esme allowed me to be in charge of. But I had to bribe Edward to get him to come out with Jasper in their outfits before the big day: apparently he was scared to death of getting his dress wrinkled.

"I want to show Daddy!" I heard Edward exclaim from inside the fitting room after the bribe. This was followed by some murmurs and then another outburst from Edward. "No! I want to show him now! He is my Daddy and I want him to see how pretty I look right now. Come on Jazz!"

Then I saw Edward running down the hall towards me, dragging Jasper behind him by the hand. Edward was wearing the most elaborate poufy lavender dress I had ever seen, while Jasper was sporting a dashing grey tuxedo with matching lavender vest. "You boys look very handsome," I told Edward leaning down to hug them both. "Now go back into the room so you don't wrinkle your dress."

"Thanks Daddy," Edward said blushing at my compliment, while Jasper just nodded.

"Walk!" I called after them as I saw them race back to the room.

So I knew what my boys and my groomsmen were wearing, but I had yet to see the bride's dress or those of any of the bridesmaids. I had also not seen what Bella and Peter, who had also been included in the wedding party, were wearing. Bella was a junior bridesmaid, while Peter was a junior groomsman. In fact, the wedding party was almost larger than the list of witnesses: only my boss, my two nurses, the Whitlocks, Cousin Hank and his girlfriend, and my five cousins, and Jack, Alan, and Sarah from group would be in the audience.

But even though it was a small wedding, there were still too many people around for Jasper's taste. He wanted to spend all of his time with his brother, because Peter was only visiting for a short period of time, but he also had trouble sticking around the house with so many strangers in it. So I took pity on the boy and dropped him and his brother off at the neighbor's house as much as possible. Peter and Jasper loved to play with Henry. And Jasper was already familiar with Henry's family, so that worked out well, for Jasper at least.

Jasper and Peter being gone left Edward all alone in a house full of grown-ups. But I took pity on him and sent him to Charlie's to play cowboys with his friend Bella. I did not like having my boys away, but it would only be for two days, and I still made the boys come home at night. Plus I had my two best friends from med-school over, Alex and Daniel, so I was kept busy catching up with them and barely even noticed.

I should have gone out with the boys for a bachelor party, but I did not want one. I could probably grin and bear it, but then I would have to allow Esme to go out with her girlfriends as well. Those three women kept trying to drag my bride-to-be to a strip club and I was having none of it. And since Esme did not actually want to go herself, we decided to blow all of our friends off and spend the last evening of our single lives as we had spent all of the evenings before it: at home with our boys.

I do not regret how I spent my evening, but I did feel a little bad leaving my friends hanging. I met my friends Alex and Daniel during my first year in med school and the three of us bonded staying up studying all night. Most of the other students were too busy competing against us to be civilized, but the three of us were at the top of our class and therefore did not feel the need to slit our classmate's throats in order to get a slightly higher A. The whole experience was so intense that the three of us could go years without speaking and still pick up right where we left off as best friends.

Alex was specializing in oncology in New York, while Daniel had a family practice in Nevada. Alex had three kids from two ex-wives, while Daniel just had a new ex-girlfriend to add to the list every six months. They were both doing well for themselves and were both more than happy that I had found a family and was settling down. They were amazed at my story of how our family had come to be: they could never imagine adopting a dying patient, who would then lead them to meet the woman of their dreams. They were both too self-centered to reach out like that.

Even though Alex and Daniel could not picture it, they could see that Esme was perfect for me and that my boys were everything I wanted in a family. They did at least admit to envying that my children were so medically interesting: they spent hours poring over their files with me. Alex even pointed out that a confirmatory test was missing from Jasper's file. Either it had been done but misplaced, or the quack who was treating Jasper back in Texas had diagnosed him with Guevedoche without confirming said diagnosis.

Guevedoche could be confirmed simply by measuring the ratio of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone in the blood, so there was no reason for the test not to have been done at the time of diagnoses. If I had not been so busy, I would have run the missing test right then and there. But Jasper's condition did fit perfectly with Guevedoche, and his files had been through three doctors before me and changed States, so I assumed the missing test was done but lost in transit. So I put calling up the old doctor in Texas and asking for the missing test results on my list of things to do after I got back from my honeymoon.

For our honeymoon, Esme and I were planning on taking the boys out of school for a month so that they could go with us. We were heading to Brazil, where we had rented a little cottage. The cottage was on the shore of an island right off the Brazilian coast. From the brochures, it appeared to be a tropical paradise. We were certain our boys would love it.

I knew that Jasper would have no trouble making up a month's worth of missed work. In fact, I was not sure why Jasper was still in second grade, when he was clearly smart enough to be skipped ahead a few grades. He was always helping Edward with his homework; Edward was in fourth grade. When I brought the subject up with Esme, she said it was something about Jasper's emotional maturity. Jasper may have been _smart_ enough to skip at least two grades, but he was not _mature_ enough to do so.

I thought immaturity was a horrible excuse to keep Jasper in second grade, so I decided to do something about it, just as soon as we get back from our honeymoon that was. Either he would have to be homeschooled or return to therapy. Therapy was something which he needed to help him deal with his mild ochlophobia. The ochlophobia, or fear of crowds and strangers, was so mild that I did not consider it a real issue most of the time, but if it was holding Jasper back at school, then it would need to be dealt with. And I had enough money to hire a private teacher to teach him in our own home if that was necessary, but I just was not comfortable with sending my boy to school every day to sit in a class that was significantly below his level.

So I was not worried about Jasper missing school, but Edward had already gotten sick twice so far this year and as a result, he had missed two weeks of school. And with the frequency of illnesses from which Edward regularly suffered, I estimated that he was due for at least another two illnesses before the school year was out. Edward was smart, but with missing as much school as he does, he was always playing catch-up.

So I am sure that you can see why I was concerned about Edward missing another month of school and therefore asked his teacher for a packet of work for him to take with us on our honeymoon. I did not particularly want to spend my honeymoon helping my son with his homework, but I figured that Jasper could help him with it while Esme and I were otherwise occupied. Plus it would mean that Edward would not be nearly so far behind when he returned to school next month.

All of these worries regarding Edward and school, Jasper and therapy, and not being able to see my patients for a month were on my mind as I tried to concentrate on wedding guests, the wedding ceremony, and most importantly, my up-coming honeymoon.

"Relax Carlisle, you look tense," Charlie said clapping me on my shoulder as we stood at the altar in my living room waiting for the ceremony to begin.

My three groomsmen and I were all wearing dark grey tuxes and standing to the left of the altar in front of a small gathering of friends and family. There was a ginormous assemblage of white flowers to my right, as well as a myriad of flowers decorating every free surface in the room, including the ceiling. My cousins may have gone just a tad over-board with the flowers.

"Do I?" I asked, turning my head slightly towards my best man, who was standing directly to my left.

"Yes," Charlie answered as the music began to play.

Edward came down the aisle first carrying a white basket filled with white rose petals and wearing his gorgeous dress. He looked absolutely adorable as he skipped and tossed the petals as he came down the aisle towards me. He stopped before me at the altar. "You did wonderfully Tink," I said kissing him of the forehead before he skipped to the right side of the altar.

Jasper came down the stairs, not far behind Edward, so he was half way to the altar when Edward finished. But unlike Edward, Jasper was not skipping. He was slowly marching with his back so straight that he looked like a soldier. And he was carrying a pillow with the rings on it. I had been worried about giving the boy the actual rings, fearing that he might drop them, but he was carrying them so perfectly level that they were not even jostled as he marched.

"You look so handsome Jazz," I said giving Jasper a kiss on the forehead as he met me at the end of the altar. Then he stepped to my left and stood by me to wait.

After Jasper, Peter and Bella came marching down the aisle. The children were followed by Esme's three girlfriends. And then finally the moment I have been waiting my whole life for: Esme walked down that aisle to meet me and take my hand. We said our vows and kissed, keeping the ceremony short for the benefit of the children. The last thing children want to do is stand still for an extended length of time while people give meaningless speeches or read irrelevant texts.

After the ceremony, we hugged our guests and went outside to dance. I danced the first dance with my wife, before calling my two boys over. I picked Jasper up with my left arm, while Edward took my right hand. Esme took Edward's left hand and placed her left hand on my arm, the one that was holding Jasper. And the four of us danced like that. After that I let other men cut in to dance with my bride, while I danced with all of the ladies.

I did, however, make a special effort to get a dance with each of my sons, having them step on my toes as we waltzed around. I also saw Esme dancing with each of our boys, but mostly I saw Jasper grab Peter and run around to the front yard to go toss a football. Edward, on the other hand, was loving all of the attention and made sure to dance with all of the wedding guests, male and female, including my cousins. That was the first time Tanya ever got a dance out of him.

The wedding was lovely and the reception perfect, but I was really glad when we cut the cake and served the food, because this meant that we were all the closer to leaving on that honeymoon. My cousins were staying to clean and lock-up the place, as well as make sure all of our guests got back to the airport to catch their planes. I knew that they would be able to handle everything and that there would be no complications to delay our honeymoon.

The food was so good and I was so enraptured by looking at my stunning new bride and my two perfect sons that time flew and before I knew it I was on a plane with my family. We flew first class to Brazil, changing planes once in Texas. In fact, Esme's relatives were on the same flight to Texas, but they were stuck back in coach so we did not see them much. I had been sure that Jasper would want to spend the flight with Peter, but instead he fell asleep in the car on the way to the airport and stayed out until we were flying over southern Mexico.

The second day of travel was a bit more taxing than the first, because now the boys were well rested and bored out of their minds. For the first evening, while Jasper slept by my side, Edward peered out the window by Esme's side. When that got dull, he pulled out his coloring book and crayons. Then Esme read him a book and put him to bed on the plane.

By the second day of travel both our boys were awake and in need of entertainment. I tried making Edward do homework, with help from Jasper, while Esme and I cuddled. But that only lasted an hour and then we were left with two very bored little boys for the duration of the long flight. Well Jasper just pulled out a book and read, but that still left one child to entertain, so Esme and I took turns entertaining Edward.

I played Barbies with Edward, followed by Esme reading him a book. And then I read him a book, after Esme played Barbies with him. I pulled his coloring book back out, while Esme pulled out multiplication and division flashcards. We played "guess what land mass we are flying over now" and talked about all of the things we were going to do on the island for the next month.

But even after all that, we still had two more hours left to go, so Esme made Jasper put his book away and play with his brother. Jasper pulled out their stuffed animals and the two of them played silently while Esme and I once again got a chance to cuddle. I was very much looking forward to putting the kids to bed and doing more than cuddling with my wife.

It was mid-afternoon on the second day when we finally landed in Rio de Janeiro. Both of the boys were excited about landing; even normally reclusive Jasper was bouncing up and down in his seat. We checked into a hotel in the city and then spent the afternoon playing tourist around the city. We picked up some souvenirs from the shops, before finding a nice restaurant for dinner.

After dinner we headed back to our hotel, where we had a suite with two adjoining rooms. We put Pirates of the Caribbean on for the boys, with instructions not to disturb us unless there was an emergency, while Esme and I retired to our room. We came up for air around nine to put the boys to bed, before returning to our room for the night.

The next morning, only two hours after Esme and I had finally fallen asleep, Edward came running into our room shouting, "Mommy! Daddy! It's morning! What are we going to do today?"

Edward was so loud and we were so sleepy that I barely noticed Jasper trying to pull him back saying, "Let them sleep Edward. We are supposed to watch the movie remember?"

I was fairly surprised by Jasper's behavior. Not that he had remembered our request and was trying to stop his brother from disturbing us, but by the difference in how I saw him interacting with Edward now versus how we always interacted with Peter. If this were Peter, I was sure Jasper would have jumped on his back, wrestled him to the floor, and refused to let him out of a head lock until Peter agreed to go back to the room and watch the movie.

With Edward, Jasper had done none of those things, but was gently pulling on his brother while quietly trying to convince him to return to their room. Maybe Jasper was just reacting to the way his brothers treated him: Peter always rough-housed with him, while the most Edward had done was sword fight with him. And with the way Edward fought with a sword, it was no wonder Jasper was gentler on his new brother than he was on his old one.

"Go back to sleep," Esme moaned as she turned over and covered her head with her pillow.

"Come on boys, let's let your mother rest," I said already awake.

I ushered them back to their room, where Jasper turned on the movie, while I ordered breakfast. I had already fed, bathed, and dressed the boys for the day before Esme got up. If we did not have the alarm set because we needed to check out of this hotel and catch our boat ride to the island, then I was sure she would not have gotten up at all. I had us all packed by the time my wife ate breakfast and got ready, and then we were once again on our way.

Both of the boys found the boat ride fascinating and it was much shorter than the plane ride had been, so Esme and I were not faced with the same issue of how to entertain them. We also did not have to entertain them much once we got to the island, because it was filled with activities for them. Not only was there the ocean and the beach to play in, but our cottage had all of the usual amenities and there was a daycare facility for vacationers nearby.

The four of us spent our days traipsing around the island enjoying our vacation, while Esme and I spent our nights enjoying each other. Esme and I spent our mornings sleeping, making up for the sleep we missed at night, while Jasper and Edward entertained themselves. We did not want them going out by themselves, so they would sit in the living room and watch a movie as they made themselves cereal. Or Jasper would help Edward with his homework. Or Edward would walk himself over to the daycare facility while Jasper read a book.

And so that is how our family spent our honeymoon on that small island off of the Brazilian coast.


	15. Chapter 14

When we came back from our honeymoon, Esme and I moved Edward and Jasper into their own bedrooms on the second floor, across from the master bedroom. We gave Edward the middle room, because it was closest to the bathroom. With all of Edward's bladder infections, he needed to be close to minimize the impact of his frequent trips to the bathroom on his sleep.

There were three bedrooms on that side of the hall and we considered putting Jasper in the room directly across from the master bedroom. But Esme and I wanted more children and were currently trying to get pregnant, so we wanted to save that room for a nursery. Therefore Jasper took the bedroom on Edward's other side, which was closer to the stairs.

Esme and I had intercourse for the first time without a condom or any form of birth control on our honeymoon, so I was fully expecting good news any day now. It was a bit scary for me to do it bare back, as I had always been all about the condoms. But Esme and I had both been tested and were clean. Plus Esme agreed to yearly testing, just in case. And we really wanted that baby and bare back is the only way to get one of those, so we had to stop using condoms.

There were a lot of other changes in our lives associated with our marriage, not just the lack of condoms. Esme and Jasper had moved in with Edward and me over the summer, so there was not so much adjustment necessary on that front. Jasper was already enrolled in school with Edward. Esme already had taken a contract for a construction project out on the Quileute Reservation, so she was not commuting so far every day. And the boys had already been introduced to the concept of a two parent home.

But while we were still away in Brazil, my cousins were here taking full advantage of the fact that I had left them here alone with a set of keys. They had taken the opportunity and completely remodeled the first floor. All of the appliances and fixtures in the kitchen and two downstairs bathrooms had been replaced. The hardwood flooring on the entire floor had been refinished. All of the windows and doors in the house had been upgraded and modernized. But most startling for me, my office had been renovated.

All three bedrooms on the first floor had been gutted and redone from scratch. My office was stripped down to the studs, the insulation replaced, and new drywall put back up. Esme had done the same to the second floor, but unlike the first floor, we had not been living on that floor at the time. All of the contents of my office had been moved and put back by people who did not know my system.

Sure my cousins had put most of it back exactly where it had been in the first place. But then Tanya, Kate, and Irina had gotten creative and decided to give the place a make-over by rearranging my furniture. And they did not like the arrangement of my pictures on the wall. I had had a system and everything arranged just the way I had wanted it. So I had to painstakingly recreate the office I had pre-renovations. It took me a few months to do, but I managed.

Esme was much more pleased with the changes my cousins had made than I was. Before her office things had just been crammed into my office. But now the bedroom directly across from my office, which had been my bedroom before the renovations, was Esme's new office. Everything was set up to her liking and she finally had the space she needed to work from home. And she was apparently unperturbed by the tacky porcelain figurines decorating her office.

This just left two un-used rooms in our house. There was Edward's old bedroom on the first floor, which we would use for a guest bedroom. And on the second floor, there was a room adjacent to the master bedroom that had previously been a sewing room. For now we would use the extra room as a playroom for the boys, but I kept thinking in the back of my mind that four children would fill our house perfectly.

Oh and there were a few other changes made to the house that I have yet to mention. Besides the attic being converted to a library and the loft and bathroom being finished in the garage, my cousins had taken the liberty of extending our living room. The living room used to be perfectly sized to hold all of my furniture. But then my cousins had pulled the piano out of the garage for Edward and ever since then, the living room has been a bit cramped. So the rear wall facing the backyard had been demolished, the living room extended, and a piano nook added. There was even a new sliding glass door and a patio facing the pool.

All the renovations were nice, do not get me wrong, but they came as a bit of a surprise. Not only was our backyard now tiny and reduced to nothing more than our pool and an area barely big enough to squeeze in a patio table, but also the living room was now huge! Esme had to buy two more couches just to fill up the space- after she threw my old one out of course- I think throwing out the couch is in the new wife's handbook.

All of those unplanned changes combined with the planned ones left me feeling very out of place in my own home. But that was months ago, as it was now late February, and I was starting to get used to all the new changes. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Jasper's birthday, and Valentine's Day had all come and went smoothly for our new family. And yes I said Christmas, not Newtonmas, as Jasper had finally gotten over his fear of the holiday thanks to therapy. That combined with the fact that Edward was too old for Santa made for a perfectly normal holiday.

I was starting to become a bit anxious about the fact that four months had passed with no sign of a pregnancy. But being a doctor I knew that it could easily take couples our age a year to conceive. Esme and I were not middle aged yet, but we were both early thirties, which was not exactly prime child bearing years. But we were not at the end of our biological ropes either, so I had every confidence that given a little more time we would hear the pitter patter of little feat and be able to fill those two empty rooms upstairs.

And there were three constants in my life that helped pull me through the day to day of my life as I anxiously awaited those little feet. I had my wonderful wife, my two boys, and my work. I was at work when the next big event in our family history occurred. I thought it was just going to be another day like any other day. I was doing my rounds; checking on my three elderly patients. I was specializing in intersexed disordered, but we do not get many of those up here in Forks, so I spend most of my time caring for the elderly who get admitted for one reason or another.

I was checking on Mrs. Mallory, an eighty-three year-old lady with a broken hip, when I got paged by Dr. Smith for a consult. I grabbed his patient's file as I walked towards the operating room. He was doing a simple surgery to repair a broken tibia in a nine year-old girl who had been brought in from Beaver. Beaver was the little town just north of here, halfway between Forks and Port Angeles.

The girl had broken her leg by falling down a ravine in the woods while being chased by Social Services. The file said her name was Rosalie and she had two sisters who were currently being held in custody by Social Services. But other than that, there was no record for the girl, because she had just been picked up by the county today and they did not even know who her parents were or what her last name was.

So the file would not be helpful in this consult, I thought as I put it down in the locker room, before changing into scrubs. Before I scrubbed up for surgery, I went to look for Dr. Smith, who I found just outside the pre-op room. I greeted him, wondering why he needed the consult.

"Oh good, Dr. Cullen, I'm glad you are here. I think we are going to have to run a few more tests before operating, so you do not have to scrub up just yet. My nurses were cleaning the child when they notice the birth defect. I want to confirm the problem with you and go from there: I don't want to administer anesthesia until we know the extent of the malformation," Dr. Smith said as he walked me next door to the pre-op room.

"What type of birth defect are we dealing with here?" I asked.

"That would be your specialty, not mine. It is not every day that we get an intersexed patient in here," he replied.

My heart started racing as I thought about what he had said. Surely I knew all of the intersexed people in this county and they all lived under my roof. But apparently someone had abandoned three children nearby, including one who was intersexed. I tried to pull my thoughts together as I laid eyes on this supposedly intersexed child, this Rosalie.

Rosalie was a very pretty little girl, even while unconscious, with long wavy blond hair. She looked enough like me and Jasper that I thought she would fit right into my family. But that was getting way ahead of myself. Sure her parents were bad parents for abandoning her, but that did not mean that she did not have family out there to care for her and her sisters. And her parents could always regain custody of her one day; six months of parenting class and a clean drug test was enough to win your kids back on a first offense.

Or maybe this was just a horrible mistake and the mother and father were hurt and taken to another hospital, while the kids ran. I just did not know the details of this case and I could not let myself jump ahead to pictures of my perfect little family becoming slightly larger with the addition of an intersexed daughter. Although she would fit perfectly into my family… But back to the task at hand: there was a little girl lying there unconscious waiting for me to give the go ahead to give her anesthesia in order to repair her broken leg.

Wait a minute, I thought before asking Dr. Smith my question, "Why is she unconscious if she has not been given the anesthesia yet?"

"She was unconscious when she arrived. The paramedics said she regained consciousness for a few minutes in the ambulance, but once they gave her a dose of morphine, she went out like a light. Social Services claimed she originally lost consciousness due to pain from the broken leg. No head trauma was reported and none detected, but we don't have a history on this one in the slightest, so who knows what happened to her before she ran from the authorities."

"Okay, I'll just take a look and see what we are dealing with," I said as I approached the girl while putting on a pair of gloves.

Rosalie was lying on a hospital bed wearing only a white hospital gown with colorful flowers. I lifted up her gown to examine her genitalia, not sure what I would find. I found a little of both girl and boy parts and I could not say for certain what sex this child was. She was definitely intersexed.

I had seen all I could from the outside, so I pulled the gown back down and removed my gloves. Then I turned to Dr. Smith and said, "There are a number of disorders this could be and I cannot even determine the sex without further testing. But an ultrasound of her internal organs should let us know if there are any internal abnormalities. I would suspect not, as she has gone this long without surgery of any kind. There were no scars to suggest any previous surgeries. Most likely this is a case where the inside is perfectly normal, and the defect is limited to the outside. But whether you are going to find testes or ovaries inside her, I can't tell."

"Thank you Dr. Cullen. My nurses will wheel her over to the ultrasound right away, but I would like you to have a look at the results and give me the okay to perform the surgery to repair the broken tibia. Also, you should probably take over her post-op."

"That's fine Dr. Smith. Just page me when the results are ready and I will be happy to handle her post-op," I answered.

I should probably have gone back to checking on Mrs. Mallory, but I was just so excited about my new patient and curious about her history that I could not concentrate. So instead I went down the hall to the nurse's station. "Nurse Donna, could you tell me if Rosalie's worker is still in the building?" I asked my evening nurse. "She is the little girl Social Services brought in this afternoon."

"Just let me look that up for you," she answered going to her computer. "I have a number here as well as a name, Kimberly Howe, and the file says that Mrs. Howe will be waiting in the emergency room for us to call her back with a status update."

"Thank you. I'm going to go speak with her and update her on the delay we are facing. Maybe she will have more information on what happened than what is in the file," I replied before heading off to the emergency room.

It was a slow evening and this was a small town, so Mrs. Howe was the only person sitting in the waiting room. I called her back to an examine room to speak with her privately. "Mrs. Howe, I'm Dr. Cullen. We have encountered a slight problem with Rosalie, which is resulting in a delay. We are currently preforming a few tests to determine if she is stable enough to undergo surgery. Can you tell me any information other than what was in her file? Even her last name would help me to pull up records from other hospitals," I said.

"The middle sister would not talk and the youngest sister is only four, so neither of them gave us useable information and we still do not know the last name. We found them alone in a motel room in Beaver. The owner of the motel said a woman checked in three days ago with the three children, but he did not get a name. He had not seen the woman since the first night when he saw her walking to the ice machine. But he did see the girls leave to walk to the convenience store the next day.

"The girls were ages nine, eight, and four, so he did not think anything of it at first when the girls went to the store by themselves. It was just right next door and they did not even have to cross any streets to get there. But when they stayed in the room and refused house keeping all day he became suspicious. He watched them more closely from then on and after another twenty-four hours without seeing the mother, he called us in.

"When my partner Joe and I arrived, the oldest girl took off through the back window and ran into the forest. She fell down a ravine and broke her leg. Joe said that she was conscious when it first happened and that she did not lose consciousness until he picked her up and started carrying her back out of the forest. This account agrees with the cell phone call he made to me right after the girl fell, because I could hear her crying in the background.

"Other than that, I have no information on these children and my partner has taken the younger two to an emergency placement foster home," she finished.

"The oldest child, Rosalie, has a birth defect and examining the other two children might help me determine the exact nature of her condition. There is a high possibility that it is genetic and therefore her siblings might similarly suffer from it. I would like you to bring them here for me to examine tonight. I believe it is your policy to have the children examined within the first twenty-four hours anyway."

"The paramedics looked over the younger two and cleared them, so we were going to wait until the morning. But if there is a serious problem with the older one, then I will call Joe and ask him to bring them right over. Can I ask the nature of the birth defect?" she asked as my pager went off. I looked down at my page and it was from Dr. Smith. "Neither my partner nor the EMTs noticed anything."

"I'm sorry, that page was about Rosalie: I have to go, but when the surgery is complete, I'll come back and speak with you. Just please bring in the sisters," I said as I left the room. "Nurse Donna, please escort Mrs. Howe back to the emergency room to wait."

I did not wait for a reply, knowing that my nurse would carry out my orders without question, and I walked back to the pre-op room. As I walked I was thinking about the implications of what Mrs. Howe had told me: Rosalie and her two little sisters had been left unattended for two days. With that level of neglect, it would be very difficult for her parents to get those kids back and it did not sound like a family was in the picture. If they had family, the middle child would have said so instead of clamming up.

But I did not have time to finish my thoughts on this matter, because I was already walking into the pre-op room and being greeted by Dr. Smith. "Dr. Cullen, the ultra sound results are back. I have the pictures here," he said handing me a file of black and white pictures. "According to the technicians, this child is male with no internal abnormalities."

"Sounds promising. Let me just double check," I said leafing through the photos. I paused on one that showed a perfectly normal set of male internal organs, except for the fact that the testicles appeared to be within the body cavity and undescended. "Look, there are the testes. If there is going to be a hernia, it will be in this area. I'll have them repeat the ultrasound later focusing on this area, but that can wait until after the bone is repaired."

"So Rosalie is good to go for surgery?" he asked.

"I can't be positive without a medical history, but there is nothing wrong with her as far as I can tell," I replied.

After that the nurses finished preparing Rosalie for surgery and I scrubbed up and stuck around to watch, just in case I was needed. As it turns out though, I was not needed, because the surgery went fine. Dr. Smith was just putting on the cast when my pager went off: the sisters were here. So I went back to the emergency room and called Mrs. Howe and the two children back to an examining room.

"Mrs. Howe, we just now finished repairing the leg, so she should be out of post-op within the hour," I said and she nodded. "Who have we here?"

"Lily is the middle sister and Daisy is the youngest. The only thing they have said is that they want to know how their sister is," she replied.

"Lily, is it?" I asked the elder of the pair and she nodded. "We just fixed Rosalie's leg but we found another problem in between her legs. Did you know your sister looks different there?"

"Yes," she answered looking about ready to cry.

"I have to run more tests on Rosalie to make sure that she is going to be okay. She should wake up soon and then you can talk to her before Mrs. Howe takes you back to the foster home. But I also need to make sure you and Daisy are healthy. There is a chance that because you are related, that you could have the same thing. Is it alright if I examine you now?" I asked the child.

"I d-d-don't," she stammered. "My sisters Jonquil and Iris did, but Mom left them at the hospital when they were babies. She thought they were sick."

"That's good. That helps me a lot to know that you had other sisters with a similar problem. What about Daisy here? Is she like Rosalie or like you?" I asked.

"Like me," she answered hugging her little sister to her.

"Okay, but I still need to examine both of you to make sure that you are not sick. Is that alright?" I asked.

"Do I have to?" she asked.

"Yes," Mrs. Howe answered.

"We have one other doctor here right now. You could wait for him, but he is with Rosalie right now. Do you want me to switch with him and I'll go take care of Rosalie while he examines you?" I asked.

"Your fine," she answered, and let me complete a basic exam.

After I finish Lily I examined Daisy. Both girls seemed healthy and were indeed girls. So I filled out the exam report for Social Services and asked Lily one more question, "Have any of you girls been to the doctors before?"

She just shook her head, so I told Mrs. Howe to take them to the waiting room while I made a copy of my report for her and checked on Rosalie. She agreed so I went off to the copier. The moment the copies were in hand, I walked down the hall to where Rosalie should be waiting in post-op. Fifty minutes had already passed, so she should be awake by now.

But when I entered the post-op room, Rosalie was still out. I questioned the nurse on hand who informed me that there were no complications in surgery after I left, but Rosalie was yet to stir. So I put on a pair of gloves and grabbed a vial of smelling salts in order to try to wake the child up: I wanted her to be able to see her sisters while they were here. But Rosalie still did not stir.

I ordered some more tests, both the additional ultrasound as well as some blood work to test liver and kidney functions. And while I was at it, I ordered a full panel to test for a variety of known intersexed conditions, including Guevedoche. Rosalie looked too similar to Jasper for that condition to not be on the forefront of my mind. And there was no reason not to test for it.

All of these tests could be done while Rosalie was still out, but her sisters could only stay a little while longer. I had hoped that she would be awake to see her sisters, but the girls could at least see her. So I told the nurse to wait on the tests until after I came back and then proceeded to retrieve Rosalie's sisters from the waiting room. Mrs. Howe escorted Lily and Daisy, of course.

"Now girls, Rosalie is fine, but she is still sleeping from the medication we gave her so that we could fix her leg. So I don't want you to worry when she does not wake up, okay?" I asked Lily and Daisy outside of the post-op room.

Both Lily and Daisy nodded so I took them inside to see Rosalie. Both girls ran to their sister's side and proceeded to cry over her for several minutes. In fact, they looked like they would stay there all night crying over their sister if we would let them. But Mrs. Howe was an impatient one, tapping her foot like we were wasting her time. Good thing I did not give her those reports yet, because that was probably the only thing keeping her and the girls here. She could not leave without a report on Rosalie and she would need a report on Lily and Daisy by tomorrow.

After five minutes I handed Mrs. Howe the reports and told Lily and Daisy that they would have to leave now, but were welcome to come back in the morning. Mrs. Howe gave me a look that said very clearly that the girls were not going anywhere tomorrow. She probably had a day off planned that these children were interrupting. As soon as she had the reports in hand, Mrs. Howe quickly dragged the children off, so I gave the waiting nurse permission to start on those tests I had ordered.

Then I went to my office to call my wife and ask her about her day. Once she told me that she and the boys were fine, I proceeded to tell her about my day, "An intersexed little girl was admitted today with a broken leg. Social Services just brought her in: they found her and her two sisters abandoned in a motel room. So far there is not much hope of finding the mother and no father or other family to mention."

"Oh how sad," my wife replied.

"Remember a few days ago there was the report on the news about a drunk driver being taken into custody?" I asked.

"Yes, a drunk woman T-boned another car and killed the other driver."

"What town was that in?"

"Beaver. It was three nights ago when it happened," she answered.

"The mother of these girls left them in Beaver three nights ago and never came back. The girls are new to the area and this woman was not from the area either, right?" I asked.

"Right. The community was outraged because she was driving drunk in Beaver but she was from Seattle or something."

"I think this woman is the mother of these three girls: it is just too much of a coincidence for that not to be the case."

"Then these girls will probably never be returned to their mother."

"Exactly. I'm thinking we should take the intersexed girl," I told my wife.

"Are you sure? I know we want more kids and I'm disappointed that we are not pregnant yet too, but isn't it still too soon to give up hope?"

"You know I want a child with you more than anything. But we only have two children at home, adding a third the same age with a similar problem will not be that much more. And we will still have that fourth bedroom to fill with a baby of our own. We could even work on that again tonight."

"Okay, but I think we should take her in as a foster child first. We should not make the decision now, but wait until we see how she fits into our family. We can put in a request to take the girl into our home tomorrow."

"That's an excellent idea. Even if we are not allowed to adopt her and she goes back to her family, I still do not want an intersexed child sent to a group home: that is just a recipe for disaster."

"I know. I wouldn't wish any child be sent to a group home. That's why Hank took Jasper for me for two days before I could get a flight back to Texas," she replied.

After that I told Esme that I loved her and that I would be home late for dinner. Then I went off to check on Rosalie again: she still was not awake. So I finished my rounds and my paperwork for the day before leaving instructions with the night staff to call me if there was any change in Rosalie's condition; for better or for worse, I wanted to know right away. And then I went home to my wife and our two sons, thinking about how we would have to put in the request for Rosalie after dropping the boys off at school tomorrow.

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><p>Author's Note: So there might be another chapter or two from Carlisle, but now we are going to move onto to Rosalie's POV.<p> 


	16. Chapter 15

Author's Note: There are a large number of Hale children mentioned in this chapter, so if you get lost, there is a complete list at the end.

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><p>Russell's POV:<p>

I was staying with my mom, Carol Hale, and my two little sisters, Lily and Daisy, in a motel room in Beaver. It was a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere with only one little motel in the whole place, but this was not where we were settling down. This was where we had run to when my mom smelled trouble in Seattle. Knowing my mother, we would keep going. We would leave the State soon, but we just had to get the money to do so first.

Mom was a hooker, so it would only take her a few days to get the money. Sometimes, like now, she went out to find a John. But normally when she worked, she just sent me and my sisters into the bathroom and told me to keep them quiet. That way she saved on the cost of a motel, because we always lived in a single room motel. And it has always been my job to take care of my younger siblings.

Ever since that one time when I was three and Mom left me and Lily with the neighbor and went out to get some coke, I have been in charge. I was not always the oldest, because before then I had had a number of older sisters, but I could not remember all of their names anymore. I knew that there were three total and the oldest sister's name had been Rosalie. Rosalie took care of me and Lily when we were babies. But what the other two were named, I could not remember.

Mom had taken Rosalie and my other two older sisters with her to pick up a bag of coke from this creep on the corner. Most other kids think coke is a type of soda pop, but I knew better. Coke looked like baby powder and Mom put it up her nose with a straw, but she told us kids never to touch the stuff. It made Mom high and sometimes she passed out, which meant she had to go to sleep for a while. I had seen Mom high and passed out enough to know that it was horrible stuff and I made a promise to myself that I was never going to put it up my nose when I grew up. That stuff scared me so bad that I will not even drink coke soda pop.

When Mom was high, she was not the adult anymore. Lily and I had to take care of her and watch her, because she was always falling down and laughing. And her brain did not work right, because she says and does stuff that not even Daisy would do, because even a three year old knows better. Daisy would not stick her tongue out at a cop or rub her mustard covered corndog on the cop car's window while jaywalking. Nor would Daisy spend all her money on bubble bath and nail polish when we were hungry, although life with Mom was not always that bad. Sometimes when Mom got high she would tell us how much she loved us, turn on some music, and dance with us.

Taking my sisters with her to get coke probably was not the brightest thing Mom had ever done, but seeing as she was high at the time, it was just what I expected from her. I did not want to end up like Rosalie, so now I made sure that Mom left me in the motel room with my little sisters when she went to pick up the coke. That and I always reminded her to stay away from cops.

Needless to say, Mom got busted for buying coke with my three older sisters in tow. They were taken away, she went to jail for a long time, and Lily and I stayed with the neighbor, unnoticed by Social Services. Social Services did not know how many children Mom had, so they never even looked for us. And the neighbor was another hooker with four young daughters of her own, so she kept us safe for six months. Mom had done the same for her when she got locked up for a week, so she considered themselves even when Mom got out six months later and picked up me and Lily.

Problems with the cops and Social Services were the two main reasons we moved around so much. You see, States do not talk to each other, so as long as we switched States every time Mom got in trouble, she started over with a clean record. We had only been in Seattle three months before Mom got busted for hooking. She was only in the slammer three days, during which time I managed to keep me and my two little sisters locked away in our motel room and undiscovered. Mom came home from jail to retrieve us and said it was time to move.

We normally get to stay a lot longer in a State before Mom gets in trouble. Last time we had stayed over a year in Florida. Mom had a miscarriage a month after we moved there, so we stayed in a women's shelter for a while. And by the time Mom left the shelter, she was already pregnant with Iris and pretty far along. Mom did not like hospitals, because they always asked for records and got into her personal business. Whenever that happened Social Services tended to get called and drug tests were deployed- Mom never did well on tests. Plus Mom said that her first child was taken away at birth, because she had been born in a hospital. So as soon as Mom was ready to pop, she checked the four of us out of that shelter and took us back to our old stand-by, the motel.

Iris was born in that motel in Florida and Mom was high as a kite to deal with the pain. She had not used since before we had moved into that shelter, but Iris' birth knocked Mom clean off the wagon. I helped deliver the baby, just like I had helped with Lilac, Daisy, Daffodil, and Jonquil. Although I was only four when Lilac was born, so I could not have been much help. Needless to say, with my Mom's line of work, she was constantly pregnant, explaining why I had so many younger siblings when I was only nine and a half.

I caught Iris as she was born, wrapped her in a towel Lily was holding out for me, and handed her to my mother. I did know better than to let go of the baby- Mom had dropped Lilac when she was high, so I kept my arms around her and let Mom wrap her arms around mine. The hard part was minding the cord, because we had to wait until Mom sobered up for her to cut it. I tried to cut the cord with Jonquil, but that thing was really thick and totally disgusting. Children's scissors just were not cutting it and the blood got all over me, and in the end Mom had ended up doing it just like she had done for the rest of us.

Mom softly stroked the baby's hair and looked into my eyes as she asked, "What is it Rus? A boy or a girl?"

That was the first thing Mom always asked and sometimes it was a hard question to answer. But sometimes it was an easy question, like when Daisy and Daffodil were born. I have been around Lily enough to know the difference between a boy and a girl. Girls have hoo-hoos with no pee-pee, while boys have pee-pees. Daisy and Daffodil had hoo-hoos just like Lily and I knew immediately that they were girls. I liked to think that I was pretty good at recognizing a girl when I saw one.

I also knew what boys looked like. When we were in that shelter in Florida, I used to play, "I'll show you mine if you show me yours," with another boy named Jamie. We got in trouble one time when we got caught, but all the shelter lady did was give us a lecture on privacy and a timeout. Apparently the older kids get in big trouble and even get kicked out of the shelter for playing that game, but since we were both only seven and a half at the time, we were let off easy.

I loved being in that shelter so I made sure to follow every rule and I made Lily, Daisy, and even Mom follow them too. I would not have agreed to play Jamie's game if I had known that it was such a serious violation of shelter rules, but I did not know and I had been curious. I wanted to know what jelly beans looked like up close. We never touched, because that would be gross, but that experience did teach me what normal little boys look like down there. That and I had seen some other boys in the bathroom and like Jamie, they all had ugly, wrinkly jelly beans under their pee-pees, so I think I would have recognized boy parts if I saw them.

I also know what I look like. Mom says that I am a boy, but I am not like the other boys. My pee-pee looks the same as all the other boys I know, but I do not have any jelly beans. Under my pee-pee, before my butt, I have a hoo-hoo like Lily and Daisy. I think there must be two types of boys and my type is the rare type. Most boys have a pee-pee and jelly beans, but some of them, like me, have pee-pees and hoo-hoos.

I did not see boy parts on baby Iris. There were no parts that looked like Jamie, nor were there parts that looked like mine, so I did not think she was either type of boy. And if she was not a boy, then she must be a girl, right? But that logic did not seem to hold when it came to my siblings and I could not see any girl parts on this baby either. There was absolutely nothing there and I began to panic, thinking that there was something wrong with the baby, while hoping that it was just the poor lighting.

I asked Lily to switch on the light and I looked again, but I still could not see any boy or girl parts. And then I figured that girl parts are kind of flat and plain without much to see, so I started hoping that this baby was a girl and I just was not as good at identifying hoo-hoos as I thought.

"It's another girl Mom, I think. There's nothing down there at all. No hoo-hoo or pee-pee or jelly beans. I think this is Jonquil all over again. We should take her to the hospital," I told my mother, while trying to stay calm.

"Well if you say it's a girl, then I'll name her Iris. We'll drop her off at the hospital just as soon as I sober up."

"Okay Mom. Lily and I will just try to do our best until then," I replied sitting down on the bed next to Mom with the baby. I could not go far until after the cord was cut.

By this point you are probably wondering what happened to our other sisters, Lilac, Daffodil, and Jonquil. Daffodil died a month after birth. She had been two months early because Mom had put too much coke up her nose. I had told Mom that we should drop her off at the hospital, but Mom had never done that before and was scared. Watching that baby die was one of the most traumatizing things that had ever happened to me and ever since then, when I say to drop a baby off and run, Mom listens.

As for Lilac, Mom had had Lilac with her when she went to the store to shop-lift some formula. I thought she was going to buy the formula or I never would have let her take the baby with her. So Social Services got called and took Lilac, while Lily and I laid low in the motel. Mom was out the next day, but she cut her losses and did not even try to get Lilac back. We moved the day after and Mom never looked back, although Lily and I sometimes talk about how we miss that baby. We had taken care of her for eight whole months before Mom lost her.

Like Iris, I could not tell if Jonquil was a boy or a girl when he was born. There was no hoo-hoo, so I did not think he was a girl, but his pee-pee and jelly beans were all wrong. I had never seen a baby boy before, so maybe they were all like that. Or maybe he was a special boy, like me.

Mom was surprised when I said the baby was a boy, because besides me, she has never had a boy. She told me once that when I was first born, she was not sure if I was a boy or a girl, but she saw the pee-pee and decided I was a boy and named me after her little brother. She saw the hoo-hoo too, but decided to over-look that, because she really wanted a boy for once.

So I had told Mom that I thought the baby was a boy, but that he looked weird down there. When Mom sobered up and looked, she said Jonquil looked like a girl to her. But like me, neither boy nor girl fit quite right. Mom decided that whatever he was the name Jonquil would do. If he was a boy, we would call him Jon. If she was a girl, then Jonquil.

Mom wanted to keep Jonquil, but I was worried. I had already watched Daffodil die in my arms knowing that she did not look healthy. I was fairly certain Jonquil needed medical treatment, so I asked Mom again to drop a baby off and run. This time she agreed and dropped him off at the nearest hospital. She was so worried about being tracked down afterwards that she packed us up and moved States that day.

So when Iris was born and it looked like Jonquil all over again, I waited until Mom sobered up and made her drop the baby off at the nearest hospital. I was really glad I did, because I caught the story on the news at the train station as we were fleeing north: "Sick baby boy abandoned at the Tampa hospital yesterday afternoon. Doctors say the baby has been in surgery for the past twelve hours, but is in recovery now. It is a good thing they got him when they did, so that this life saving surgery could be performed in time. Authorities say the baby was left in the hospital emergency room by this woman with nothing but a blanket and a scrap of paper saying the name, 'Iris.'" And at this last part, they put up a picture of my Mom carrying Iris. Her face was covered by her hoodie and Iris was wrapped in the towel from the motel. Then the news lady moved on to talk about adopting dogs.

So apparently I had guessed wrong and Iris was a boy. Somewhere out there I have a brother. Sometimes I wonder where he is now and if he is happy. Sometimes I just wonder what his name is: they could not have kept the name Iris for a boy. I also wonder what happened to my other siblings. From Rosalie to Lilac to Jonquil, they are all out there somewhere wondering where their mother is and why she never came back for them.

Right now I was wondering the same thing: Mom had left three nights ago to hit the streets. When she did not come home the first night, I just figured the John took her back to his place for the night. When she still was not back in the morning, I hoped that maybe Mom was just working over-time to get us out of here quicker. But when she still was not back the second night, I knew something was wrong. She must have gotten picked up.

There was no other reason that our mother would stay away so long. Not even taking too much coke and passing out on the street had kept her away this long. She has never left us this long before unless she was in jail or the hospital and there was no reason for her to do so now. She loved us and would do anything to keep us. I knew that, which was why I always did my best to keep my siblings safe while she was away. She took care of us the best she could even though she did not have a father for any of us. I was her man and she said that was enough for her.

So on the third day I started to panic about what I should do. I had always just stayed put and waited for Mom to come back for us, like I had done for that month and a half back in Georgia. But Mom had always paid for the motel through the month. I always had time to wait in said motel for her to get out of jail. There was always money in the drawer to take to the store down the street and buy top ramen, microwave dinners, and diapers for Daisy. There was always water in the sink to drink, a bed to sleep on, a microwave to cook with, and a bathtub to bathe Daisy in. And I always had clean clothes for Lily so I could send her to school.

Although Mom had been gone for a lot longer in Georgia, I had had all of these things and more. We fled to Georgia after Jonquil was born and Mom was actually doing pretty well there money-wise, so there was six hundred dollars in that drawer in the motel when she got picked up. And Mom had been taken to the hospital, not jail, that time, so she was able to maintain contact with us and slipped me money and supplies. She even called me every day to check on how we were doing.

Mom had been taken to the hospital because she had been extremely ill with pneumonia or something. When the cops pulled up, the other hookers ran, but Mom had been too sick to get away. They had not really caught Mom doing anything and were going to let her go until they noticed how sick she was. So they searched her, found some coke, and booked her before dropping her off at the hospital.

Mom had been two months pregnant at the time, which complicated the pneumonia, so it was almost two months before they let her go. But since she was in the hospital, not jail, she was allowed contact with the outside world. The first thing she did was use the hospital phone to call up our neighbor, a fellow hooker, and ask her to bring me and my sisters by for a visit.

When we arrived, Mom told the nurses that her friend was her sister, but admitted that we were her children, saying that her sister was watching us until she got out. The nurses felt so bad for us after seeing how poor we were that they took up a collection. Every week they would bring in a bag of food, new clothes, and diapers for Daisy. And every week, our neighbor would ride the bus with us over to the hospital to pick up the donations. Children ride for free and she had a bus pass.

So with food, clothing, and diapers provided for, that just left me to figure out the rent on the motel. Mom had already paid through the month and had left six hundred in the drawer. Six hundred would not be enough to cover it, but luckily Mom had earned two hundred dollars that night she was picked up. So the first time we visited her, Mom slipped me the money, bringing my total to eight hundred dollars.

Eight hundred dollars was enough to cover the rent, but a seven year old could not exactly walk into the motel office and pay for a month with no parental figure in sight. Luckily my neighbor helped me out by taking our money to the office for me. That neighbor was really nice and helped out with a lot of other stuff too, like going down to Lily's school for her parent-teacher conference. But she had already had her children taken from her, and we were pretty independent, so she was more than happy to help us out until Mom got out.

And by the time Mom had gotten out, she had been clean so long that she decided to stay that way, explaining why she was still clean two months later when she was taken to the hospital again in Florida. She miscarried that baby in Florida. And since the three of us had all been at Lily's school with Mom when she went into labor, we had been taken along with her to the hospital. I had been convinced at the time that Social Services were going to be called and that we would be taken away. But instead, we were allowed to stay with her the entire time until she got out and was sent to a woman's shelter.

But now we had not been planning to stay here and Mom had only paid for the room for three days. We should have checked out by now and I was sure the manager was going to come knocking on our door any minute asking for money or for us to leave. I could not open that door without an adult present or Social Services would be called. I could not pay for another night, because we were broke: I had spent our last fourteen dollars buying diapers and top ramen. And I could not run to the neighbor and ask for help, because we had not been here long enough to know which of the other rooms were filled with other hookers and their children.

So what options did I have left? I could not stay, that much was clear. But I had no money and nowhere to go. Maybe if it was just me and Lily we could live on the streets for a while, but I could not stay on the streets with a three year old, so we could not take Daisy with us. And what would we eat and how would Mom find us when she finally got out? And was that really best for Lily?

Lily was an eight year old little girl with beautiful long wavy blond hair. I had long wavy blond hair too, but that was just because I had not had it cut since that shelter in Florida: we really had it good there. I had gotten to go to school and everything. But back to Lily, she could be adopted. Families love adopting cute little white girls. Jamie told me so.

Jamie stayed at the shelter in Florida with his mom and older brother. He had been into the system and returned. He said he had had two little sisters in addition to the older brother when he was taken, but both sisters got adopted before his mom could get them back. So when she cleaned up her act and came for her kids, her boys were the only ones left. Jamie was my main source of information for what it was like in the system.

If you were a girl, you got sent to live with a real family and got adopted. If you were a baby boy, you got adopted too. But if you were an older boy, like us, you got sent to a group home. Group homes were dirty and filled with other boys who beat you up. The beds smelled like urine and the supervisors could not care less when you turned up for dinner sporting a new black eye. And the only time Jamie got taken to the doctor was when another boy broke his arm. I had never been taken to the doctor, but I also had never been beaten up before.

Jamie's story sounded bad, but Erin's story was worst. Erin was Jamie's older brother and had been eleven when they were taken away. He was put in with the teenagers. The teenaged boys beat up the younger boys just like in Jamie's group home, but in addition, the teenagers also raped their victims. I knew what rape was from my mom: rape was working and doing a good job and not getting paid but getting hurt instead. I did not want to get hurt and I did not want to have to have the same type of job as my mom.

I loved my mom and everything, but I did not want to grow up to be her. Squeezing out another baby every nine months and not knowing who the father was? Getting in trouble with the cops all the time? Having to move from State to State just to keep your kids? No thank you. I had dreams of growing up and finishing school and getting a job at McDonald's. That place was great: they even had a playground to play in after I ate my happy meal. Or maybe I would move back to Florida and get a job at Disneyworld: the happiest place on Earth. I had never been, but it sounded good.

But back to my problem: my mom still was not back and I did _not_ want to be put in a group home and be beaten up until my mom could get us back. And I knew my mom would not even try to get us back. She would just move on. She was already pregnant again, so she would just start over with that kid. Running and living on the streets seemed to be my best option. But I did not want to subject Lily and Daisy to that life, so I decided that they should go with Social Services and get adopted.

I could just leave now and Social Services would round up my sisters soon. Daisy and Lily would probably be fine until then. But I just could not leave, because Mom had told me to stay with my sisters while she was away. I was to watch and take care of them, so I could not leave them. But I had a plan: I would stay here in this motel room with my sisters until I was sure Social Services were on their way and then I would run.

This plan would be cutting it pretty close and I had a long time to think about and weigh my options while I waited. What would I do if I did get caught? I did not want to go to a group home. I wanted to stay with my sisters and get adopted too. Maybe a nice family with a new mom would love me. But back to reality, I was Russell Hale and nice things like that just did not happen to me.

But maybe I could go with my sisters and get adopted if I was a girl. Who cares about the pee-pee? I had a girl part too and that could be enough to get me into a girl's home with my sisters. It should be. I had never been to the doctors before, who was to say that I was not a girl? If I had to walk around with a hoo-hoo, I should at least get some benefits out of it, like going to live with my sisters.

So if I did get caught, I should tell them I was a girl and show them my hoo-hoo to prove it. But I should look like a girl and have a girl's name too. What would Mom have named me if I was a girl? Probably something flowery like Jasmine or Rose… Rose. I had a sister named Rosalie before. It started with an R like Russell and it was my sister's name, so I would remember it when asked. As for looking like a girl, my hair was already long. All I would have to do was comb it and tie it up. And I could borrow some of Lily's clothes: we wore the same size and shared clothes all of the time.

Wearing girl's clothes was not exactly new for me, because they were all I wore until I was about four. Having three older sisters meant that I had plenty of hand-me-downs to choose from; they were just in the girl variety. Mom had wanted me to be a boy, so she named me Russell and told everyone that I was a boy, but for the first three and a half years of my life, I had worn my sister's hand-me-downs. And after that, I was with our neighbor for six months. She did not have clothes for Lily and me, so she too put us in her four daughter's hand-me-downs. It really was not so bad because they always let me wear the plain ones when we left the house, and no one really noticed the little flowers on my jeans or that the collar of my shirt was wrong.

It was not until Mom came back for me, a month before my fourth birthday, that I ever remember having real boy's clothes. My older sisters, and thus Mom's supply of hand-me-downs, were gone, so Mom had to go out and actually buy clothes just for me. Of course she got them used from food banks and Good Will stores, but they still were boy clothes, which was all that mattered to me. I even had a shirt with a dump truck on it.

I was happy to have boy clothes for once, but they came with a lot of responsibility and ever since then I have been the oldest and had to take care of my little sisters. It was just Lily at first, but then there were Daisy and the others too. It was a lot of work and stress and often I just wanted to go back to simpler times; times when I wore dresses and had someone to take care of me. So I did.

I never borrowed Lily's dresses when Mom was home, but while she was out buying coke I would ask Lily to tie my hair up pretty, like a girl's. I would take it down when I heard Mom coming, but it was just how I liked to escape from my reality. And when my reality was particularly bad, like when Mom was in jail and it was up to me to make sure we did not get caught until she came back for us, I would really need that escape from reality.

It was times like these when I would ask Lily to switch with me; switch clothes and roles and I would be the little sister wearing the dress and Lily would be the responsible brother wearing the pants. Lily would take care of Daisy and make sure that we had everything we needed and I would have a break from my reality. I would play with Daisy, watch TV, and pretend that I was the one who got to go to school the next day. But I always had to switch back before the next morning, because Lily was the one who got to go to school.

Wearing a dress sounded really good to me right now when I was so scared about the future. It would be comforting to borrow Lily's dress and pretend there was still someone who cared about me. But letting Lily take the responsibility off of my shoulders was just more than I could ask of her right now. I still needed to be in charge, but being in charge while wearing a dress would at least make me feel a bit better.

But a dress would not be practical for running and running was still my preferred plan. I would need pants to run. But they make pants for girls too and any girl clothes would feel comforting. Any girl's clothing would allow me to pretend that I was a girl named Rosalie. Any girl clothing would get me into that adoptive home with my sisters. And Lily had plenty of pants and shirts for school; she had four whole sets.

So I told Lily my plan as I rummaged through our duffle bags and changed from my jeans and shirt to Lily's pink shirt and matching heart jeans. Then I combed my hair and put it up with a pink hair tie, while I told Daisy to call me Rosalie. I kept repeating the plan and my new name to Lily over and over so that she would have it down when we were asked. And while I drilled my sister, I prepared for my other plan, to run.

I grabbed the rest of the top ramen and the seventeen cents we had to our name and packed them into Lily's backpack. I dumped out all her school supplies and started packing her clothes: her socks, her jacket, her shirt, her pants, and even her underwear. If I was picked up on the streets by Social Services, I would still want to be a girl. And as I packed this bag, I realized I was wearing the wrong underwear, shoes, and socks. I quickly put on a clean pair of Lily's panties and socks. Lily's shoes were too small for me, so I was stuck there. But I did have a pair of hiking boots, which would be good for running through the woods, so I pulled those on and was just tying the laces when I heard the knock on the door.

We all froze, uncertain of what to do. Should we answer it? Should we run out the back window? Should we look through the peephole? I was certain it was just the manager coming to look for my mom, so I told Lily to look through the peephole, while I put the backpack on my back and opened the rear window. We were on the first floor with a forest out back, so it should be fairly easy to run and hide.

"It's the manager," Lily confirmed. "What do I do?"

"Quick Daisy, what's my name?" I asked.

"Rus," she answered.

"No, I'm Rosalie remember. Rosalie," I said pointing to my chest as I stood by the window.

"Rosie," Daisy replied.

"Close enough," I said. "Lily, just remember that I am a girl and my name is Rosalie. Open the door and say Mom is not in right now. He'll turn around and call Social Services, but we have no other choice."

"Okay Rosalie," Lily said opening the door. "Sorry Sir, but our mother stepped out this morning and has not returned. Have you seen her by any chance?"

"There they are: the mother left three days ago and the kids have been locked in there ever since," the manager said as a woman stepped out from behind the door: he had already called Social Services.

Stupid little towns and their know-it-all people. They see one knew person and they watch them like a hawk. We never would have been caught this soon in a large city like Seattle. Mom should have stayed there until she had enough money to get all the way out of State.

"Love you Lily and Daisy, but I'm out," I said as I climbed out the window and ran.

"Bye Rosalie! We love you!" I heard Lily call after me.

"Come back here! Go after her Joe!" I heard a lady shout.

I turned around just long enough to see a third person, this one a large man, climbing out our motel window to chase me. I did not need a second look, I ran. I ran as fast as I could through the strange woods. I kept running even though I could hear the man right behind me. But all too quickly I came to a ravine and a choice: I could jump and try to make it or I could surrender and go with Joe.

I jumped, but I did not make it. I fell down the ravine and broke my leg. I could tell it was broken from the way that the bone was jutting out of my lower leg. I could not see the entirety of the injury through the pants, but the bone had torn through the thin jeans, so I could see it and the blood. There was a lot of blood. I knew that with an injury like this, there was no use trying to run, so I just laid back and rested my head on the backpack, which was still on.

"Just stay put and I'm going to come down and get you!" the man, probably Joe, yelled as he looked down at me.

He started to climb down, but was taking a long time, because of the steep slope. "What's your name little girl?" he asked while he climbed.

Good, he bought my disguise and thought I was a girl already. "Ros-a-lie," I answered in between sobs. My leg hurt and not crying was beyond me at the moment.

"You are going to be okay. We are just going to clean up that cut on your leg and then we will find your mother. She probably got hurt and couldn't come back for you. Maybe she was taken to the hospital," he tried to reassure me.

I was pretty sure my mom was not gone because she was in the hospital, unless she had had another miscarriage, like back in Florida. But she had not been high then, and they felt sorry for her after the miscarriage, so they let her go and gave her the number for a women's shelter. Maybe we would luck out and that had happened again.

"My mom was pregnant: maybe the baby started to come too soon," I hoped in between sobs of pain.

"That could be it. Why else would she leave three little girls and not come back?" he asked as he finally reached me. "Oh man, this leg is broke. I'm gonna call my partner to send an ambulance. I thought you just scrapped your knee: you should've told me."

"If I'd just scrapped my knee, I would've gotten up and kept running," I seethed at the moron who was pulling out his cell. I was in a lot of pain now.

Joe the moron was on the phone with his partner and then calling nine-one-one for several minutes while I just curled my body into a ball, without moving my leg, and cried. Once he put down the phone he said, "Help is on the way. I'm just gonna pick you up and try to get you out of this ravine. Maybe we can meet the paramedics in the parking lot. How does that sound?"

I nodded my head to indicate that I was not going to fight him and gritted my teeth. When he picked me up, he jostled my broken leg so bad that I screamed. "I'm sorry Rosalie, but the sooner we get you out the sooner we can get that leg fixed," Joe apologized.

But the intense pain only got worse when he started carrying me up the ravine. I must have blacked out because the next thing I remembered was a bright light. Someone was holding my eyelids open and shining a flashlight in my eyes. "She's awake," a male voice announced.

"Rosalie's alive? Can I see her?" Lily's voice pleaded. Good, she remembered my name.

"Rosie!" Daisy's voice screamed.

I tried to sit up and find my sisters. I just barely got a glimpse of them before a strong man pushed me back down and added some straps for good measure. I reached out my arm in the direction I had seen them, only to have it pulled back to my body and strapped down too.

"Just lie back and you can see your sisters at the hospital," the man strapping me down instructed. "I'm going to give you something for the pain."

A moment after I heard that I felt a sharp sting in my arm: he must have given me a shot. I had seen those on TV, but never had one before. It hurt, but then the pain in my leg started to go away and all of the sudden I was very sleepy. I did not wake up again until I was in the hospital.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Whew! Explaining intersexed disorders in the eyes of a nine year old was really hard. Plus Russell has not been going to school, so he has less education that a typical nine year old. By the way, can I get a show of hands as to who thinks RussellRosalie is a boy and who thinks she is a girl? That is the fundamental question that she will have to face in her life.

* * *

><p>The complete list of the Hale children, in order is:<p>

Heather- intersexed, born in a hospital in New York and taken away at birth

Rosalie, Jasmine, Holly- taken away when Russell was three from a drug bust

Russell, Lily- stayed with Carol the longest

2 miscarriages- drugs

Lilac- taken away from shop-lifting

Daffodil- born premature and died subsequently

Daisy- stayed with Carol

Jonquil- intersexed, abandoned at a hospital in Alabama

Miscarriage- intersexed

Iris- intersexed, abandoned at a hospital in Florida

Miscarriage- car crash


	17. Chapter 16

Russell's POV:

When I woke up I was in the hospital and there was a girl my age standing by my bedside and looking at me. I had hoped to wake up to Lily and Daisy, but she was not Lily or Daisy. This little girl had very short red hair and was wearing an expensive looking black velvet dress covered in white beads in a snowflake pattern.

"Hi, I'm Edward," she greeted me. "I'll just page my dad and let him know that you're awake."

She pressed a button on my bedrail and when it beeped I heard a voice answer, "Nurse's station."

"Hi, it's Edward. Can you tell my dad that Rosalie is awake?"

"I'll page him right now. Should I send in a nurse too?" came the disembodied voice.

"No, I got it," the little girl answered.

"Okay sweetie." And then I heard another click like a phone was hanging up.

"My dad should be here soon: he's your doctor. He makes me and my brother Jasper sit with old people who have no one to sit with them. We really lucked out because he said we could sit with you today. But it's a school day and we are not even supposed to be here, so I refused to come until he let me change into my Christmas dress. Christmas already passed, but it's cold out and it's a nice warm dress, you know?" the red headed girl named Edward asked me.

I was a little confused by all of this, but when I looked past him, there was indeed a blond little boy sitting on the couch in my room. He waved when I looked at him, but returned to reading his book without a word.

"Have you seen my sisters?" I asked.

"Nope, but my dad said they were sent to live with a nice couple. He said they were in here crying over you, but you wouldn't wake up, and their worker made them leave. That's why he picked me and Jasper up from school and made us sit with you: so you wouldn't be all alone in the hospital. He said they still have not found your mother."

"Okay," I said and closed my eyes. I was still groggy and I had gotten the important part out of him: my sisters were gone.

"I thought your page said she was awake Tink?" a male voiced asked coming into the room.

"She was Dad. She just closed her eyes right now. She was talking to me, right Jazz?" Edward asked.

I did not hear the blond boy answer, but I opened my eyes and found a tall blond doctor staring down at me. "She's pretty, isn't she Dad?" Edward asked the doctor. So this must be Edward and the blond boy's dad. I wonder why he named his daughter Edward… But he called her Tink just now… maybe her name was Tink.

"Yes Tink, she's pretty. Why don't you take Jasper outside while I talk to Rosalie," the doctor replied placing a cold round metal object on my wrist, before removing it again. I had seen these things on the TV before, so I knew that doctors always wore them around their necks, but I could not remember what it was called.

"Can we get frozen yogurt?" Edward or Tink asked.

"No, I'm not going to be that long. Just wait in the waiting room."

"Doctor's longue," the blond boy countered.

"Fine, but behave," the doctor said before his children left the room. "I'm Dr. Cullen and I'll be your doctor for the rest of your stay here in Forks. Do you know how you got here?"

"Ambulance?" I asked.

"Good. Do you know what happened?"

"My mom never came home and Social Services showed up so I ran. I fell and broke my leg," I admitted.

"Good. What is your name?" he asked seriously. I thought he already knew this one: they had been calling me Rosalie.

"Rosalie Hale," I answered.

"What's you middle name?" he asked writing something down.

"None of us have middle names: my mom had so many children she couldn't be bothered."

"How many children were there? Social Services only brought in three."

"One died, Mom gave two sick ones away, and at least four others were already taken by Social Services before."

"So ten live births?" he asked and I nodded. "That is a lot. Were any of the others intersexed like you?"

"What's intersexed?"

"Non-typical private parts. You know you have a penis too right?" he asked.

So I have been found out, I thought blushing. "Yes, the two Mom gave away."

"Was this nearby? In Washington State?"

"No, the last one was in Florida. The one before that we were in Alabama."

"Okay. I'm currently running some tests on you to find out if you are a boy or a girl, but you can be whichever one you want to be as far as I am concerned. You tell me to check the female box and I will. Are you a girl or a boy Rosalie?"

"Um, girl?" I asked. I was still a little groggy from the surgery and I had not had time to think about what my answer should be. I just remembered it being really important to me before to be a girl.

"You don't sound too sure about that. Do you just want to be a girl so that you can go with your sisters?" he asked. This doctor was too smart for my own good.

"Can I?" I asked.

"No, not right now. Right now you have to stay in here until your leg heals. And if your mother doesn't come for you by then, I'm going to call the mental ward to come get you: they will give you ice cream and talk about gender identity with you until they find your family."

"Oh," I replied dejectedly. "I want to stay with my sisters."

"Even if your leg wasn't broken, there are no foster homes that want intersexed children. And there are no group homes for them either. But my wife and I are already approved to be foster parents from when we adopted Jasper and Edward, so we were thinking that we would take you ourselves."

"You would take me?" I asked surprised.

"Yes. Do you want to know a secret?" He was waiting for a reply, so I nodded. "Jasper and Edward are both intersexed, just like you."

"Jasper is the boy and Edward is the girl, right?" I asked.

"They are both boys: Edward just likes to dress up. He wants to be a boy, so he is. If he wanted to switch, then I would let him. The good thing about being intersexed is that you can be any gender you want. Do you want me to send in someone to talk to you about that now? It would be better if that waited until after your leg healed, so that I can stall that social worker of yours."

"You don't like social workers either?" I asked excited about my prospects of staying with the good social worker hating doctor.

"They try, but the system is damaging to children. Keeping you here with me until they find your family is your best option. Speaking of which, what is your mother's name?"

"Carol Hale. We just moved here from Seattle."

"Do you have family in Seattle then?"

"No. We don't have any family. I never even met my dad."

"Well that's too bad. I'll give your mom's name to the police and asked them to find her for me."

"My mom was pregnant. Do you have any extra pregnant women around here?" I asked hopefully.

"No. This is a small town and I would know if a strange pregnant woman was brought in. The police may have some leads on what happened to your mom. You never know, she could still be out there trying to find you."

"She must be," I replied with more confidence than I felt.

"Now I have to go check on my other patients, so let's go over your prognosis. Okay?"

"Sure."

"You have a broken leg, so the nurse will be giving you pain meds through this IV every four hours. If you're in pain, push this button and talk to the nurse. You can't get out of bed with that leg, so your nurse will bring you everything you need. If you need to use the restroom, push the button. If you need a bath, push the button. If you want to change the TV channel, push the button. If you're hungry, push the button. You already missed breakfast and lunch, but dinner will be brought by in a few hours. Are you hungry?"

"No. My stomach hurts."

"That will be the anesthesia. You were out for a longer time than usual. The nurses were trying to wake you up all morning, but that sometimes happens with kids. We just have to check your kidney and liver function and make sure you are okay. And your intersexed test results should be back next week. Do you want me to send my boys back in to sit with you?"

"Yes please," I answered not wanting to be alone.

"Okay, now you just send them away if you want to get some rest. Oh, and here is money for frozen yogurt: Edward will get it for the three of you when you want," he said handing me a twenty.

"Thanks!" I said taking the money and starting to feel like my old self again. What I could have done with this money two days ago: I could have put my sisters and myself on a bus back to Seattle. Maybe I could have found someone we knew there.

"If you need me, just ask the nurse," Dr. Cullen said as he left.

A minute later Edward came bounding into my room, while Jasper followed behind silently. Jasper sat back down on the couch to read, like nothing had happened. Edward, however, came straight to me and asked, "So what do you want to do the rest of the day? I bet if you cry and tell my dad that you're scared and lonely he'll let me stay out of school all week to sit with you!"

"Why does your brother just sit there and read?" I asked.

"Oh he doesn't talk around strangers. Once you get to know him though, he'll talk. I'm in charge of watching out for him because I'm the big brother. How old are you?"

"I'll be ten in April," I answered.

"I'll be ten in June, so you're older. Jasper just turned eight!"

"My sister Lily was eight. And Daisy was almost four. Do you think your parents will adopt them too?"

"No, Dad said they were already placed. And Mom and Dad only have intersexed boys. No girls. I was hoping he would bring you home so that we could have a sister!"

"Can I tell you a secret? But you have to promise not to tell."

"Sure, I can keep a secret. But if it's about being sick, I can't or Dad will get mad at me. Mom and Dad let us do whatever we want, as long as it doesn't involve our health: Dad's real strict about that, but he's a doctor," Edward rambled.

"My mom said that I'm a boy, but I want to be a girl. My name is Russell," I admitted. Now that I was fully awake, I started to think about my earlier plan to be a girl to stay with my sisters. I was still pretty scared about being in the hospital and being a girl meant having someone to take care of me and make sure I got out of here safely. So even if I could not be with my sisters, I could at least be a girl a little while longer.  
>"Cool! I won't tell, but you should tell my dad eventually: he won't tell on you to the social workers. He'll even let you be a girl. And you need to tell my dad your other name so that they can find your real records."<p>

"I don't have any records. I went to school for the year I was in Florida, but that's it."

"No doctor's visits? Doctor records are the type my dad likes. He's always looking at mine and Jasper's, right Jazz?" Edward turned around to look at Jasper, who nodded. "He'll talk more once he gets to know you."

"I've never been to the doctor's before this. I was even born at home: my mom said that one of my siblings got taken away at birth because she had her in the hospital. Ever since then, she has had all of us at home."

"Dad only told me about the two sisters. Anyway, the nurses have games and toys for the kids. I bet I can get them to bring you something. What do you want?"

"I had a teddy bear once when I was little. Do they have teddy bears?" A teddy bear would be nice to hold while I was scared. This hospital place was scary even if Edward was nice.

"Yep. What else do you like? I made them bring me Barbies when I was stuck in here."

"Lily had a Barbie. Daisy had a stuffed bunny. The last toy I had was back in Florida: I left my car behind when we moved. It was a little one, about this big," I said holding up my fingers to show the size.

"Matchbox car," Jasper said.

"Jasper plays with those. He's never been admitted here, but I bet they have them," he said before paging the nurse.

"Yes Edward?"

"Can you bring Rosalie a new teddy bear and a matchbox car? She doesn't have any toys in here."

"I thought you were going to request a Barbie," the nurse teased.

"Nope, Rosalie wants a car and a bear," he replied.

The intercom clicked off, before Edward spoke again, "She'll bring them in soon. They always give new toys and let you take them home with you. People donate money for toys for sick children, so you can get whatever you want. Matchbox cars and teddy bears are pretty cheap and you're going to be in here for a long time, so you can ask for other toys too."

"What else would I want?" I asked confused. There was not much I could play with while I was stuck in bed with a broken leg.

"A book," Jasper said.

"Can't read," I replied. I had only just finished Kindergarten when we left Florida. Lily was farther along with school than me; she was in second grade in Seattle. I was a little embarrassed that my younger sister was in the grade above me, but I was just so happy to finally get to go to school that I did not care. Before then I had always been so busy taking care of Daisy that I could not go to school, because someone had to stay home and watch her.

"A picture book then," Edward suggested. "And do you have any clothes? You can ask for whatever you want: the foster care system will pay for that. I know, because they bought me all the clothes I wanted until my adoption came through. They still send Dad a check in the mail to buy me stuff. He doesn't need it, so he just puts it in my University fund so that I can be a doctor when I grow up. I'm working on my bedside manner."

"What's that?"

"Standing next to the patient and talking to them, like I'm doing right now with you. Am I doing good?" he asked.

"Doing well," Jasper corrected.

"Don't mind him. He's just a genius. A silent antisocial genius," Edward teased turning around to stick his tongue out at his brother. "Dad likes kids with problems like that. If Jasper behaved, Dad might send him back."

"Related," Jasper said. What was with this kid and one word sentences?

"Whatever Jasper! Jasper is related to my mom. He's her nephew; that's how my parents met. My mom was adopting him, while Dad was adopting me. They were the only two people in the area adopting intersexed children and Dad specializes in that. So they fell in love and got married last October. We were both in the wedding."

"Really? Your parents are married, like on the TV?" I asked. None of the kids I knew had two parents who were married to each other.

"Yep. And Dad could still send you back; he would just have to send Mom back too. And we _like_ her, so you _are_ probably safe," Edward teased.

"So does that make you two cousins?" I asked.

"No, we call each other brothers because we live in the same house. But he calls our parents aunt and uncle still," he answered as the door opened.

"There were only three bears and five matchbox cars in the closet to choose from. You can have all five cars, but which bear do you want?" the nurse who was at the door asked.

"The black one, please," I answered as she handed me the cars. Then she gave me the black bear too. I snuggled the bear and sat the cars by my side.

"I'm Nurse Donna. Do you need to pee or anything sweetie?" she asked me.

"Yes. Are you going to help me to the bathroom?" I asked.

"No, you're going to stay in that bed for me while I get the bedpan. Maybe we'll let you out of bed next week if you are feeling better," she said retrieving a shiny metal bowl.

"I can't stay in bed for a week! What if I have to poo?" I asked incredulously.

"They made me stay in bed for a month. Twice," Edward replied.

"That's what the bedpan is for. Now do you pee sitting or standing?" the nurse asked.

"Standing," I answered.

"That will make this easier for you. I'm just going to place the pan between your legs and you can aim it in there. Okay?" she asked pulling back my blanket and lifting up the bottom of my gown.

"Did you pee like this when you were in here Edward?" I asked eyeing the nurse suspiciously as I felt the cold bedpan touch my skin.

"No, I had a cath the whole time. But this is better than a cath, so just go along with her," he replied as he took my hand to hold.

Edward was by my head, and I could not see my pee-pee from this angle, so I figured he could not either. I looked at Jasper to make sure he was not looking, but all he was doing was reading that book again. So I reached in my gown and aimed at the pan. I got most of it in, but some splashed back on me, which was really gross.

"I want a bath," I said as the nurse wiped me and took the pan away. I did not like being dirty, because it reminded me of the times when Mom did not have money to pay for a motel for the night and we had to sleep in dirty old buildings or in the park.

"Sure sweetie. I can give you a sponge bath right in the bed. Do you want the boys to stay with you for that or would you prefer they leave?"

"Have you had a sponge bath before Edward?" I asked, not quite sure what one was.

"Lots of them. I almost died last time I was in here. I was in a coma and everything!" he replied cheerfully.

"Yes, Edward is our miracle child. We were all sure he was a goner," the nurse said cleaning the bedpan.

"Then they can stay. What was wrong with you?"

"I caught SARS. That's what killed my parents. But now I have Mom and Dad and Jasper, so it's okay," he answered sadly.

"What's a coma like?" I asked while I watched the nurse prepare a bucket full of warm soapy water.

"I don't remember. I think it was like sleeping," he answered.

"Now I'm just going to take off your gown and put some towels underneath you. Okay?" the nurse asked me.

"Sure," I answered. I did not really want to agree, but how else was I going to get clean?

"I liked sponge baths though. If you ask, the nurse will sing to you."

"Why would I want her to sing to me?" I asked as the nurse finished lifting my naked body and inserting towels underneath.

"My old mom used to sing to me, so I like it," Edward answered.

"Me too," Jasper said putting down his book and coming to stand by Edward for the first time.

By this time my nurse had finished my lower half and was working her way up my body to my chest. I noticed that I was already pretty clean, despite the fact that I had been lying on the muddy forest floor, so I asked, "What happen to all the mud and blood?" I thought I was dirtier than this, which was why I had wanted the bath so badly.

"They washed you before the surgery. You were in surgery and recovery all night last night. And then we got you this morning, but you wouldn't wake up for us," she answered. "You're our only patient right now and we wanted to play. You spoiled all our fun."

"You wanted to play?" I asked as Edward took a towel and started to help by drying my unbroken leg.

"Yep: did Edward tell you that we get to play with the patients in the children's ward?" she asked and I shook my head. "Well we do. And we have a whole closet full of toys and games, but we don't get to play if we don't have any kids. Then we just have to do work."

"What if I don't ask you to play with me?" I asked.

"Then we have to work: we can't force you to play. But we can try to temp you by bringing in some of the games we have. We have lots of games, like Sorry, Uno, and Monopoly," she replied moving on to my arms. I had never played any of those games before.

Her washing my chest felt nice and I was stuck in a hospital bed surrounded by strangers, so I decided to ask her to do it again, "Can you wash my chest again? It feels sticky."

"Sure, but can I do that long hair of yours first? Then I'll rewash your chest and rinse it off with clean water. That should help."

"Can you guys cut my hair too?" I asked while I was at it. If I had found paradise, I might as well ask for all of the amenities, even if it was a scary paradise.

"No, leave it long. Please Rosalie? For me? It's so pretty," Edward begged.

"But can I at least have a trim Edward? I haven't had a trim in a long time," I replied. My hair was half way down my back and I was certain they could trim it and still leave it looking like girl hair.

"We can trim your hair however you want my Rosalie. There's no need to listen to Mr. Cullen. It's Dr. Cullen you have to obey," the nurse replied.

"But I want to brush it and tie ribbons in it and comb it. I bet braids would look lovely in your hair Rosalie," Edward replied.

"I used to put braids in Lily's hair every day. Daisy's hair was just growing long enough to braid," I said.

"Is that a yes?" Edward asked. "I can braid it right now after your bath.

"Yes," I replied and Edward left me to do a celebratory dance in the middle of the floor.

"Rosalie that is a pretty name you have. And both of your sisters also have flower names?" the nurse asked me as she washed and conditioned my hair.

"Yes. I had a lot of other sisters too: Iris, Lilac, Daffodil, and Jonquil. My mother gave us all flower names," I answered as she rinsed my hair.

As soon as she was done with my hair, Edward and Jasper each appeared at my head with a towel and started to dry my hair. And as promised, my nurse went back to my chest and started washing again. She thought she was done, so I said, "The water is cold. Can you make me some warm water?" I might as well enjoy my sponge bath.

"Sure sweetie," she answered taking her bucket over to the sink and refilling it with fresh water. When she returned, she went back to work on my chest. "How's this?"

"Better," I lied. It was perfect. I could get used to this: the nice warm soapy water on my chest and it felt like she was giving me a massage the way she moved the washcloth over my body.

"Good," she said as she finished and then retrieved a bucket of clean water to rinse my chest off with. And by the time she was done drying me, Edward and Jasper were done drying my hair.

"Can you get her a pretty dress and sit her up so I can comb her hair?" Edward asked.

"Sure sweetie," the nurse answered as she covered me up with a clean blanket. She retrieved a pile of pillows from the corner and tucked them behind me when I sat up. Then she picked Edward up and sat him on my bed behind my head. She handed him a comb and he began to do my hair. "Let me just go get some hair ties and some clean clothes."

"Where did Jasper go?" I asked Edward.

"He's just sitting in the other corner reading his book. He likes to read."

"Oh."

"Sorry sweetie, but no real clothes until we take the IV out. But this should be a tad better than that nightgown," my nurse said as she came back into the room with a pile of clothes. She sat them down on the foot of my bed and handed Edward some hair ties.

"Thanks," Edward said.

"I have this nice dress for you, Rosalie," the nurse said holding up a dark blue dress that did not look much different than the nightgown. "It Velcros at the arms and back just like a hospital gown, but looks better."

"Not really. I want a dress like Edward's. And some panties too," I replied.

"Maybe next week. But how about a sock?" she asked holding up one matching sock. Oh right, the other foot was inside the cast. Stupid broken leg.

"I guess."

"Good," she replied as she pulled back my blanket and began to attach the gown. Once that was on, she added the sock, and then finally removed the towels from underneath me.  
>"What about my sheets? I probably got those dirty when I peed in the bed," I said.<p>

"No, I had a pad down under you. I already pulled it out and threw it away when I put the towels under you. Here, let me just put a new one down," she said pulling out a large blue pad.

She lifted me up, put the pad under me, sat me back down, and adjusted my IV, before pulling my blanket up and saying, "All set. How's that hair coming along Edward?"

"Almost done. Can you braid that side while I braid this side?" he asked.

"Sure can do," she said coming over to work on my hair.

A minute later, they were done, so she handed me a mirror to look at myself: I looked like Lily with my hair like this. It was really pretty.

"Thanks," I said as the nurse helped Edward off of my bed. Then she removed the extra pillows so that I could lie back down.

"They should bring dinner in here in half an hour. If you need anything at all or even if you're just bored, push that button and give me a call."

"Will do."

She left and it was just Jasper, Edward, and me again. I remembered the twenty their dad had given me, but I was not hungry, so I decided to wait to get the frozen yogurt. "Can you two come back tomorrow and play with me?" I asked.

"Sure. Just ask my dad and he'll bring us right back."

Just then I realized that my money and my toys had been moved to my table, which I could not reach. "I can't reach my table."

"Here, I'll get it," Edward said, rolling the table closer to me.

I grabbed my new teddy and put him by my side before looking at my new cars. "This is a cool red car," I said as my door opened again.

"Mommy!" Edward exclaimed throwing himself into the arms of a brown haired woman.

I would have thought that Jasper would hug her too, but he just put his book down, stood up, and walked slowly over to me. "Bye Russell. You were way better than sitting with old people," he said before walking over to his aunt. So the boy could speak in complete sentences after all.

"Is this the Rosalie I have heard so much about?" the woman asked as she came over to my bed. I nodded. "My husband called me from work yesterday he was so excited when you came in. It's not very often he gets a cool patient like you out here in the wilderness. I'm Esme, Dr. Cullen's wife, Edward's mother, and Jasper's aunt. If you need anything, you just let me know and I will get it for you."

"Thanks Ma'am, but I think the nurse already got me everything. Look at these cars she brought me!"

"Well your bedside manner must be improving Edward: I know you would not have asked for cars. Or did you help with that Jasper?" she asked.

"No, Jasper read," Edward answered. "Rosalie likes cars, so I got her cars, just like you said.

"That's my boy. Now we have to go home, but Dr. Cullen is still around, so you just push that button if you need anything. And the nurses will be here all night," she said.

"Bye Rosalie," Edward said coming over and giving me a hug. When he was close to me he whispered, "I hope they let you be my sister soon. We could have a lot of fun together."

"Bye Edward and Jasper. Please come back tomorrow!" I called as they left the room. I was tired again, so I laid back and closed my eyes, thinking about how it would be nice to have brothers.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: so Russell has turned into Rosalie, but what will Carlisle's tests reveal?<p> 


	18. Chapter 17

Russell's POV:

"Good morning sleepy head, I'm Nurse Jill," a nurse greeted me when I woke up the next morning. "I've been waiting for you to wake up. How are you feeling today?"

I was still a little groggy, so I sleepily replied, "Okay, I guess."

After that she helped me with my new morning routine, which involved using a bedpan and having my braids redone. While she was doing my hair, she asked, "So what grade are you in? Your teacher wants to know so she can come by later with the right books."

I was conflicted by this news. On the one hand, I really wanted to go to school. Mom had said that I might get to go next year once Daisy goes off to Kindergarten, although I highly doubted it given that she was pregnant again. Odds were I would just be stuck home caring for the new baby while Mom got wasted. On the other hand, I was embarrassed about my answer to this question: I should have started first grade this year, but I had not been able to do so.

I took so long answering this question that the new nurse took a break from combing my hair to look at my face. "Don't cry sweetheart. Whatever grade you are in, you are not in trouble and no one will judge you. If you have never been to school, that is okay too: you can start from the beginning," she said wrapping her arm around me. "It's not too late to start."

I looked down at my hands and fidgeted for a minute before replying, "First grade."

"Well first grade is nothing to be ashamed about! I bet you are really smart, but all that moving around doesn't help. Your social worker was in here earlier talking about how she could not find your school records in Seattle. Were you in first grade there, or somewhere else?"

I shook my head before replying, "I never started first grade. I finished Kindergarten right before we left Florida. We were in Tampa." I was a little worried that telling the truth would lead them to find out that I had been a boy, so I did not tell her the exact city. We had lived just outside of Tampa.

"Well that explains it. I'll call your teacher and let her know. She should be by this afternoon. And I believe your worker will be back soon to talk to you. You have a really busy day ahead of you, because Dr. Cullen should be back around noon. You'll have to see him too. And the doctor's boys are coming back to play with you this evening, so Nurse Donna and I are barely going to get any time to play with you."

"Do you have any news about my sisters? Can I call them?" I asked.

"You should ask your social worker. I haven't heard anything knew from what Donna told you yesterday," she said finishing my hair.

Then the nurse pulled over my tray table, which now contained a tray of breakfast foods, and told me to eat. I had not had real food like this in ages, but I was not all that hungry, so I was having a hard time deciding what to eat first. I ate a bite of everything, but what I really liked was a bowl of fresh berries of some kind. Once my nurse saw that I was eating, she left saying that she would be back to check on me soon.

I was just finishing my berries when there was a knock at my door. "Come in," I greeted, hoping it would be that nice doctor again.

"Hello Rosalie, I'm glad to see you awake. I'm Mrs. Howe, your worker," the lady started.

"Are my sisters okay? Where are they? Can I see them? Can I call them? Are they worried about me?" I asked. Information on my sisters was all I wanted from my worker right now.

"They are fine. I just talked to them on the phone this morning and I'll stop by to see them again tonight. I saw them last night and Lily and Daisy were both a little scared and a lot worried about you. Lily said to tell you that they're treating her and Daisy fine, so you don't have to worry about them.

"I'll try to arrange for you to see them on the weekend and maybe you can talk on the phone tomorrow night. Today their foster parents are taking them down to school to sign them up. Daisy is going to start preschool. Any more questions?" she asked.

"Nope," I replied, disappointed that I could not see my sisters.

"Well I have more to tell you: we found your mother."

"Where?" I asked tentatively.

"She's in jail right now. I don't want to scare you, but she's going to be in there for a long time."

"Like six months? She went in for six months before."

"Maybe more. Lily and Daisy will be adopted by the time she gets out."

"What did she do this time?"

"She was driving drunk and hit someone."

"Is the baby okay?" I asked, wondering what would happen to this baby while my mother was in jail.

"No, she lost the baby. And the person your mom hit died: only your mom walked away alive." It was a bit of a shock to learn that my mom had accidently killed someone, but honestly there was not much my mother could do anymore to surprise me.

"Oh… but I don't understand why my mom would have been driving. She didn't have a license or a car. Where did she get the car from?"

"How much do you know about your mother?" she asked, obviously hesitating about something.

"Well I know she does coke and she was supposed to be out looking for a John to earn some money the night she never came home," I answered truthfully, thinking that she would be more likely to tell me the truth if she knew I already knew what was going on.

"You know a lot," she said and I just shrugged, waiting for her to continue. "The car she was driving probably belonged to a John. The John was found dead in the trunk of the car when your mother crashed it. She said the man tried to hurt her and that she was trying to defend herself. But even if it was self-defense, she's still in trouble for hitting the other man with the car."

"So how long exactly will Mom be away this time?" I asked sniffling.

Mom had never done something this bad before, but also I was scared that the John had hurt her. Most Johns were busy men and would just leave when they were done, although a few of them were nice and would stay and talk to us. But there had been a few Johns who were really mean and scary. Mom had always changed motels or moved away to another city afterwards, but she had gotten bruises from them. Who was going to take care of her if I was not there to help her?

"She has to go to court and have a trial first. I talked to the prosecutor this morning and he said your mom will probably get one to five years. And even if she does get out soon, she still left three little girls in a motel room to fend for themselves for the night and she didn't tell the police to come find you girls. That was very irresponsible of her, so the judge will probably not give any of you back," she finished.

"I figured as much: Mom has had other children taken away before."

"Now I don't have many families who are willing to take in sick children, but Dr. Cullen and his wife have asked me if you can stay with them. If the judge agrees, it will be temporary: only until everything is settled with your mother. Once we know for sure that you can't go back to her, we'll all meet again to talk about a permanent plan for you. What do you think? The Cullens are a nice family and it's the best option you have."

"I like Dr. Cullen and his family. His boys came and played with me yesterday."

"So I should tell the judge to send you to live with Dr. Cullen for now?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Okay Rosalie. I'm going to file some paperwork saying that I think you should stay with the Cullens. Then I'm going to check on your sisters and I'll be back tomorrow to see how you're doing. Do you have any more questions?"

"Nope. Just send my nurse back in or your way out, please?" I asked. I was supposed to call her to take this breakfast tray away when I was done.

The social worker agreed and sent the nurse back in, who cleaned up the tray and then proceeded to try to make small talk with me while she fussed with my IV. But before she finished, I heard another knock on the door. This time is was Dr. Cullen. I was happy to see him, so I smiled and waved him in the door.

"My worker said I might get to go home with you! And then I can play with Jasper and Edward without them having to come to the hospital," I told him excitedly as the nurse excused herself and left.

"That's wonderful: she told me the same thing! My wife is getting the guest bedroom ready, but it'll still be a while before you can come home from the hospital. I got your kidney and liver test results back. Your kidneys are fine, but your liver function was a little slow, so I've added another medication for your nurses to put in that IV and we'll have to monitor you."

"Am I going to die?" I asked, not sure what he was talking about.

"No, you are most certainly not going to die. You just are recovering from the surgery slowly and you need a little more care than other kids. In fact, you'll still be able to get out of bed within the week and this probably won't affect the time it takes before you can come home. How does that sound?"

"I can't wait!"

"I want to talk to you about something else, Rosalie."

"What?"

"Your worker told me about your mother. She already spoke with you and let you know what was going on?" I nodded, so he continued, "I was really sorry to hear that she was taken to jail. I don't think the courts are going to let her out or give you and your sisters back. I would like to go speak with her. I want to ask her if she will let you stay with my family. Is that alright with you?"

"Why do you need to ask her? That social worker seemed to think the judge was in charge. Shouldn't you ask the judge?"

"I will ask the judge when the court date comes. And I've already asked your worker. It's really only up to them, but I would still like to ask your mother, if for no other reason than because she loves you. I'm sure she wants to know that you are with a family that's going to take good care of you. If it were the other way around, I would want to know you were okay."

"When you go, can you tell her that Lily and Daisy and I are safe? And tell her I tried to protect them and I even ran from the social workers, but they caught me," I said as a tear slipped from my eye.

"Yes, I can tell her that. Is there anything else I should tell her Rosalie?" he asked.

"No, but don't call me Rosalie when you see her," I replied thinking that I was going to have to tell the truth.

"Oh and why is that?" he asked curious.

"Mom wants me to be a boy. She calls me Russell and she doesn't know that I go by Rosalie when she's not around."

"So when I'm talking to your mother, I should refer to you as a boy and use the name Russell?"

"Yes please."

"I can do that. Normally I would tell you that you should tell your mother the truth about how you feel. If you want to be a girl, you should tell her so. But I'm sure she is already upset enough right now and that can wait. But will you tell your mom eventually?"

"If I ever see her again, I will," I lied. I did not want my mom to be disappointed in me and I thought she would be disappointed by the name change.

"Good. Now I need to run a few more blood tests, so Nurse Jill will be back in here to draw some blood in just a moment. And my boys will be back at four. How was that frozen yogurt?"

"I wasn't hungry: the twenty is still on my table. But I'm hungry today, so I'll ask Edward to get it when he arrives."

"Good. If you need or want anything, all you have to do is ask. You know that right?"

"Yes," I said wondering what else I could possibly want.

After that Dr. Cullen left and my nurse came back in. After she took my blood, they delivered my lunch. I ate half a sandwich and then I asked the nurse to give me another bath, and right as she was finishing putting my dress back on, the teacher arrived. My nurse made her stay outside while she finished up with me, but then left me alone with the teacher.

"Hi, I'm Mrs. Barnes and I'll be your teacher until you can go back to regular school. I'm sure you have met a lot of new faces in the last few days, so we can go slowly at first. But by the end of the school year, I want to have you caught up to the rest of your class. How does that sound?"

"So I could start second grade next year?" I asked hopefully.

"Definitely. Now your nurse told me you have not been to first grade at all this year, is that correct?" I nodded, so she asked another one, "And you finished Kindergarten last year?"

"Yep."

"I'll try to get your records, but for now I brought a book for us to read and a math test for you. Don't worry about getting everything right, the test is just more for me to see how much you already know."

"Lily reads to me and shows me stuff she learns from school. I make her do all of her homework while I watch," I offered. It was pretty lame that my little sister was trying to teach me at home, but we Hale kids worked with what we were given.

"That's good. Maybe you picked up some of the stuff from Lily. Now do you want to read Green Eggs and Ham with me?" she asked.

I nodded and she handed me a book, while she pulled out another copy for herself. I could not remember much of the reading words I had learned last year, so after the first sentence, the teacher stopped me and said she would read it to me today. She did and then she pulled out a piece of paper and asked me to write my ABCs. This one I could do, and I was certain that I had nailed it, but she did not look too pleased with my letters. She said we would work more on writing tomorrow.

Then she gave me the math test, which was all addition and subtraction. This one I knew, because I did the shopping in the family. I had to know how to make sure I was not being cheated, and how to make sure I had enough money for the things I needed. I also had to know which of the things I needed I would have to put back because I just did not have enough money. So adding and subtracting was something Mom had taught me when I was four. And it was something Lily would show me in her homework so that I could practice.

I finished that test really quickly and handed it over to be graded. I played with my new cars while I waited, but I had not even reached for the third car before the teacher was done. "This math test is really good Russell: you got them all correct! I'll have to bring you a harder math test tomorrow!"

"Lily's in second grade. I can do her level of math, but not the problems with words, because I can't read," I replied.

"Okay, I'll bring back a second grade test tomorrow. But for now, we can read another book. I also brought The Fat Cat Sat. Do you want to read that one with me?" she asked.

I agreed, so we read a much easier book about a fat cat. I recognized some of these words from Kindergarten, and most of the words ended with at, so I guessed at those. I got about half of the words in the book right, so I was feeling really proud of myself when we finished. The teacher even said I did a good job. But then she pulled out some flash cards with the really hard words from the book, like "the", and kept going over them.

The teacher was taking so long I was considering closing my eyes and pretending to be asleep. But before I could put this plan into action, Edward and Jasper knocked on the door. I was really glad to see them, because once they showed up, that teacher said she had to get going, but would come back tomorrow.

"Edward, your dad left me money for frozen yogurt. Will you get some for the three of us?" I asked as soon as the teacher was gone.

"Sure, I'll be right back," he said taking the money.

When he left, Jasper walked over to my table and picked up the Fat Cat book the teacher had left. "We were reading that today: that teacher said she is going to teach me to read," I told him.

"I could help you: you could read it to me and I'll tell you which words you miss," he offered.

"That's really nice of you. Do you want to sit on my bed? There's plenty of room," I said scooting over to one side. It was hard because of the cast, but I mostly just scooted my body in the direction of the cast to make room.

"Sure," Jasper said jumping up on the bed next to me.

I wrapped my arm around him like I would Lily, and began to read. This time I remembered all of the at words, while Jasper helped me with the hard ones. It was a lot more fun to learn with him than it had been with the teacher.

We were just finishing the book when Edward returned carrying a cardboard holder with three frozen yogurts. "They only had berry flavor today," Edward said as he handed me a treat.

"This is really good," I said as I dug in.

Jasper and Edward must also have liked it, because neither of them talked again until their bowls were empty. When we were all done, Edward took our bowls and threw them in the trash. Then he called the nurse and asked her to bring us a game called Sorry. The four of us, including my old nurse, Nurse Donna, played together.

But all too soon my dinner came and Mrs. Cullen picked up the boys. But I was exhausted from the long day, so as soon as I finished my green beans, I laid back and went to sleep for the night.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: I would like to thank everyone who has left me a review so far. This second chapter in the same week is for you.<p> 


	19. Chapter 18

Russell's POV:

The rest of the week passed in a similar manner with my two nurses taking care of me, my worker stopping by in the morning, and Dr. Cullen stopping by to check on me regularly. Dr. Cullen said he had spoken to my mom and that she said it was fine with her if I went to stay with him and his family. He even passed a message from her back to me. I do not know how he got a letter passed the police and I could not read, but he read it to me and let me keep it.

It read, "My Dearest Russell, I'm really sorry that I wasn't able to come back for you like I promised. And by now you know that I'm in jail and won't be able to see you for a long time. I'm really grateful to you for keeping your sisters safe. I want you to try to keep track of them for me. I know you can't stay with them, but I have to ask you to keep in contact with them as much as possible. I worry about all of you, but I know you'll all be safe and happy without me. Please try to be happy. Just know that I love you very much- Mom."

Reading my mother's letter made me tear up, but I just kept holding on to the one thing she asked of me: to keep in contact with my sisters. So every time I saw my worker, I asked to see or speak with Lily and Daisy. But my worker seemed more concerned with court dates and judges. It was not until after she came back saying the judge ruled that I could stay with the Cullens that she finally let me call my sisters.

Lily said that they were staying with a really nice family who had already bought her and Daisy lots of new clothes and toys; more clothes and toys than they had ever had before. And she was really excited about going back to school on Monday. Then Daisy got on the phone and told me about her new doll and the park that was right across the street from their new house: not a motel, an actual house like they show on TV.

But all too soon the worker said I had to go, so I told my sisters that I loved them and that I thought they should try really hard to be happy with their new family. I also told them I was going to be okay because I was going to live with a really nice family once I was released from this hospital.

Mrs. Cullen had stopped by with homemade treats for me and to talk to me a few times during the week. She was really nice and she still let her boys sit with me every evening. I was sure that the entire family was nice. Mrs. Cullen was just like one of those mothers on TV, who was always taking really good care of her children. And both Jasper and Edward said she was a good mother and that I would like her. So I really thought I would be happy with the Cullens; if I ever get out of this hospital that was.

But my days were mostly filled by two people: my new therapist and my school teacher. My teacher came every day, twice a day. In the morning she would come and read books with me. Then she would have me go over flash cards with the hard words on them. Then she would make me write the words from the story over and over again. It was really hard work, but I was always proud of myself when I could read a new book to Jasper in the evening.

Jasper even started bringing books just to read with me. He never brought easy books like my teacher, but they were Disney books filled with pretty pictures, and he would read the entire story to me. He even started cuddling in next to me like Lily and Daisy used to do: I could get used to this having a little brother thing.

But reading and writing in the morning were not enough for my new teacher, so she came by after lunch as well. But at least the stuff she taught me after lunch was more exciting. She would always bring a page of addition and subtraction, which I would finish right away. But then she would bring out toys, like differently shaped blocks, and teach me the names of all the different shapes. I already knew shapes like square and triangle from Kindergarten, but she was teaching me shapes like cube and pyramid.

And after math, my teacher would pull out other toys, like a globe or magnets, and teach me about science. Then she would read me a story that she said was true and called it history. Playing with magnets was really fun, but history was boring. When I told Edward this, he repeated it to Jasper, who had an absolute fit. Jasper said history was not boring, it was the way they were teaching it. Then he told me a really cool story about fighting and bombs and stuff, and he said that was history too.

And ever since then, Jasper has been bringing history books to read to me too. The books were full of boring pictures of guns and other weapons, but he made the books come to life the way he told of epic battles and bloodshed, while pointing to the pictures in the books he brought. It seemed Jasper could go on for hours about all the different wars that had been fought, but luckily, Edward would always change the subject after half an hour.

Edward and I were quickly becoming best friends and I found that we could talk about anything. He even made an effort to play cars with me and Jasper, while we each made an effort to play Barbies with him. Barbies became more fun once Edward brought out his set from home.

Edward had a man Barbie dressed as a doctor that he said was the dad Barbie. He also had one dressed as a mom, and he had two little boy Barbies that he said were him and Jasper. Only his was wearing a dress. Then he pulled out a little girl Barbie named Rosalie with long blond hair and asked me what I wanted to dress her in. I picked an outfit with tan pans and a shirt with a truck and the three of us played Barbies together. Edward even asked the nurse for two more blond little girl Barbies, which we named Lily and Daisy. We had a lot of fun.

And I kept letting everyone call me Rosalie and treat me like a girl, because I liked it. I had not gotten used to people calling me Rosalie, but I liked having my hair braided by the nurse every morning and I liked all the comments about what a pretty little girl I was. I was even really looking forward to having a nice dress like the ones Edward had. Although, Edward never did wear a dress to visit me, after that first day that was.

So I found myself a little confused over what I wanted to be. Before I had always been told that I was a boy, so that was what I was. But now that I had a choice, I was no longer sure. The nurses and Dr. Cullen must have noticed my confusion, because once it was set that I was definitely going home with the Cullens, a therapist came to see me. Dr. Cullen said that there was no need to stall and keep me in the hospital as long as possible now that my future was set, so I was free to tell the therapist all my problems. In fact, Dr. Cullen said I would even get to leave early since he was a doctor; maybe even next week.

So now I had to meet with my therapist every morning before my teacher came. My therapist said that even when I got to go home, she and my teacher would still be stopping by every day. So it looked like this was how my days were going to be spent for a while. But at least I liked my therapist; not that I could remember her name. I had met too many new people in the last week to be able to remember any of their names.

My therapist wanted to know everything about me, from my life with my mother, to taking care of my sisters, to how I liked to play, to how I felt about going to live with the Cullens. And she also wanted to talk about something called gender roles and how I felt about them. I told her about how I was not sure what I wanted to be and she really seemed to understand. She told me that I should try both out before making up my mind. I had already tried boy, so I decided to put all my efforts into trying girl.

I got to try girl for real for the first time on the Sunday after I was admitted into the hospital: my morning nurse came in and took out my IV. Then Mrs. Cullen came in and dressed me in real clothes that she had brought from home: she had even brought a black velvet dress just like Edward had. Someone must have told her that I asked for it. At first I thought she was just giving me Edward's hand-me-downs, but then Edward came in wearing his own dress, so that could not be. Even Jasper was dressed up in a matching pair of black slacks, a white buttoned down shirt, and a tie.

"Wow! You both look really nice today. What's going on?" I asked as Mrs. Cullen and the nurse dressed me. They had a little trouble getting my panties over my cast, so they switched to larger ones that were too big for me. They gave me plenty of room for my pee-pee, but kept slipping down my waist, so the nurse safety-pinned them up. That made the panties stay up, but I was really scared about a pin being so close to my pee-pee.

"Don't you know?" Edward asked and I shook my head.

"You are going home today!" everyone shouted at once.

"Home? Really? I thought I was just going to get out of bed for the first time," I replied.

"Yes really sweetheart. Your latest blood work was much better, so when it came back last night, my husband said I could come and take you home with us today!" Mrs. Cullen announced.

"And I picked out your shoes," Edward said holding up a single shiny black shoe and a white sock with lace. "I have the same ones." He pulled up his dress so that I could see his matching shiny black shoes and lacey socks.

"Cool. I like those," I replied thinking that this must be the nicest pair of shoes I had ever had.

"And I picked out the bows for your hair," Jasper said bringing over two plain black bows.

The four of them finished dressing me up and just as Mrs. Cullen was adding the bows to my braids, Dr. Cullen came in with a camera. "There's my new daughter! I've been looking all over for you so that I can take a picture with my entire family together."

Dr. Cullen handed the camera over to my nurse and all of the Cullens gathered around me to take a picture. Then while they were packing all of my new stuff up into a duffle bag, my social worker came in. She made Dr. and Mrs. Cullen sign some paperwork while my nurse brought in a wheelchair. Finally Mrs. Cullen gave me a long black coat to wear, and Dr. Cullen transferred me to the wheelchair, and we went home.

When I got to their home, I thought I must be dreaming! It was huge and white and looked like something out of an old movie. But the inside looked brand new; Mrs. Cullen said that she had just painted it. They gave me a tour of the downstairs, but said the upstairs could wait until after my leg healed. All their bedrooms were upstairs, but they had made me a bedroom on the first floor.

Edward eagerly explained that this bedroom had been his and Jasper's before, but now they each had their own rooms upstairs. He said there were two more bedrooms upstairs, so when I got better, I could pick whichever one I wanted. But this room down here was pretty sweet, because I was right next to the living room, which had a humongous TV. Plus, Dr. and Mrs. Cullen had home offices right next to my room, so I would not have to go far to find them.

My room was decorated for a little girl: it had pink walls and white furniture and there was lace everywhere. It was really nice, but it was so big it was scary, and I was not sure it was for me. "What's wrong?" Mrs. Cullen asked when she saw the look on my face.

"It's nothing really. I've just never had my own room before and this one is really big and I'm worried I'll ruin all of this nice stuff. What if I get it dirty? I asked reaching over from my spot in the wheelchair to pick up the off-white teddy bear that was on the bed. "Is this bear for me?"

"Yes, everything in here is for you. Now how do you want it decorated? I was thinking pink ballerina bears," she replied.

"I thought it was already decorated. There is a lot of pink and lace here. Isn't that enough?"

"No, I was going to add painting to the walls. You can have anything you want, really, anything at all. What kind of paintings do you want?" she asked, but I could not think of anything. The room was already too nice and too perfect.

A few minutes passed and Esme started listing off suggestions, "If you don't want ballerinas, we could just do bears. Or unicorns. Jasper has his room done in cowboys and horses and Edward has pirates and pirate ships. Surely you must have thought about having your own room before and dreamed of something?"

I shrugged, before giving in and telling her, "I always pictured cars when I dreamt about it at night. But this is really great too."

"Nonsense, if you want cars you can have cars. I think grey racetracks and a maroon border will look awesome with a few racecars."

"But this room is already pink and lacey. Cars won't match."

"Oh don't worry about that, I'm going to decorate your bedroom upstairs in cars. This is just the guest bedroom," she said. "Besides, I'm sure I can find a pink car."

"Awesome!" I exclaimed snuggling my new bear. I liked teddy bears and now I had two.

After that Mrs. Cullen showed me my new closet and dresser, which were both already filled with clothes: more clothes than Daisy, Lily, and I owned combined. And there were both boy and girl clothes. Both the dresser and closet were split down the middle, with boy clothes on the left, and girl clothes on the right.

"Just in case you change your mind," Mrs. Cullen said when she saw the look on my face as I drooled at the clothes. "Dr. Flynn said that you were still undecided on which gender you wanted to be. I want you to know that my husband and I do not care which one you choose: we will love you no matter what." Dr. Flynn must be my therapist's name.

"Can I be a little of both?" I asked, trying not to cry.

"Of course Rosalie," she answered hugging me.

"I want to be a girl, but my name is Russell. I want to be called Rus again," I admitted. I still wanted to try being a girl. And I really liked a lot of the aspects of being a girl, but my name was Russell.

"Of course Rus," she said lifting up my chin. "Do you want to be called 'he' or 'she'?"

"I don't know Mrs. Cullen. But I want to try 'she' for now," I replied holding my bear close to me.

"Well I don't have a problem with that young lady, but can you please call me Esme, Mom, or Auntie? Edward calls me Mom and Jasper calls me Auntie; any of those are fine."

"I'm sorry Esme. There have just been a lot of new people lately and it is hard to remember that many names," I admitted.

"I know sweetheart. So if you forget, just call me Auntie. But none of this Mrs. Cullen business, got it?"

"Yes Auntie," I replied. I kind of wanted to call her Mom, but I just was not ready yet. I still did not know how long I would be with them, so I did not want to get my hopes up. I did not know if I could bear having another mother taken from me.

Esme unpacked my bag and showed me where all my stuff went, then Dr. Cullen came in and she told him of my desire to be a girl named Russell. He agreed and then wheeled me into his office. "This is my office, so all of your medical treatment while you are staying with us will either be done here or in your room. Now I wanted to go over the results of those tests I got back last night," he said after he parked me in front of a large desk.

His office was filled with everything from paintings to books to medical supplies, but the labeled cabinets in back of his desk caught my eye. There was a drawer and a cabinet labeled "Edward" right next to one labeled "Rosalie." I wondered what he had in my cabinet and drawer. I looked around for a cabinet labeled "Jasper," but found none.

"Esme said my new tests looked good," I said as I continued to look around.

"Your liver function was back in the normal range. I'll continue to monitor it for the next month, but I think it was just a side effect from the anesthesia. That was the main thing keeping you in the hospital."

"That sounds good," I replied not really knowing what he was talking about.

"I also got most of your other tests back, although I'm still waiting on the DNA analysis. You have partial androgen insensitivity syndrome, or PAIS."

"What's that mean?" I asked.

"Well that means that you are genetically male and your internal sex organs are male, but your body has trouble sensing the testosterone. Typically patients with these disorders are given testosterone shots to make them more masculine and they often are capable of producing viable sperm when they grow up."

"In English please?" I requested, not understanding a word of this.

"You have boy parts inside of you including a set of balls, so you could be a daddy when you grow up."

"Oh! Cool!" I exclaimed thinking it would be cool to have jellybeans. I was pretty sure he meant jellybeans when he said balls. "Can you put the jellybeans on the outside?"

"Jellybeans?" he asked and I just shrugged, embarrassed that I had probably said the wrong thing again. He must have figured out what I meant on his own though, because he continued a minute later, "It depends. I think they may descend on their own when you grow up. If not, then it is possible to perform a surgery to move them to the correct position. Are you thinking about being a boy?" he asked me with concern.

"Maybe. I kind of like the idea of having jellybeans. I've always wanted to know what it's like. But I like being a girl too. That therapist lady said I could decide later."

"You have time to decide. My wife and I just want to be kept in the loop with what you are thinking. The problem with not picking a gender is that we don't know what to tell people. If we tell everyone that you are a girl and then you change your mind, then we have to tell everyone that you are a boy. You see the problem?" he asked.

"Yes. People will think it's weird," I answered dejectedly.

"Not just that, but then everyone will know that you are intersexed. That is private information and it should be your decision to tell people or not. If you choose to tell everyone, Esme and I will support you, but right now you are just a little girl, and that is a big decision resting on your shoulders. I think it would be easiest for you to wait until you get older to tell people, so until then, we should try to prevent people from finding out."

"Will the other kids make fun of me if they know?" I asked worrying about possibly being bullied at school. I had never been bullied before, because I had been so much older than the other kids in Kindergarten that there was not much they could have done to me.

"Some might. No one knows about Jasper or Edward yet either, so I am not sure how the locals will react."

"Okay, I think we should wait. But how are you going to keep it a secret? What if I want to change genders again?" I asked thinking that this was a real possibility.

"I have been working on a plan. With that broken leg, you can't leave the house much anyway and your therapist and teacher will be coming here to visit you. So if we limit your contact with the outside world to just a couple of people, then it will be easier to lie. Our family and some of the people from the hospital will know the truth, but that's it.

"Esme and I are going to tell everyone that we are taking in twins from the foster care system. Our twins are both going to look like you, but one is going to be a girl named Rosalie, while the other is a boy named Russell. And although I don't have a problem with calling you Russell at home, I think we need to have other people call you Rosalie when you are dressed as a girl. It's the only way I can think of," he explained.

"But what are Edward and Jasper going to say when they go to school and talk about me?" I asked.

"Well Jasper doesn't speak at school, and Edward will have to refer to you as Rosalie at school. And as for where Russell is: he is still in the hospital in Port Angeles because he has some complex medical problem. I'll make something up to tell the grown-ups, but you kids just say Russell is sick and in the hospital in the city. Got it?"

"I could do that. But what are we going to do when I decide and there is only one of me?" I asked.

"Well if you pick Rosalie, then Russell was sent to live with Lily and Daisy. If you pick Russell, then Rosalie is with Lily and Daisy. We will blame it on Social Services and you will say you are very upset about it, but you still get to see Rosalie or Russell on the weekend," he answered.

"That could work," I replied thinking about it. I could let strangers call me Rosalie on the rare event that I left the house and this plan would make it easier for me once I do choose. But there was just one problem. "What if I decide to be a girl permanently but still want my name to be Russell? What will we tell people then?"

"That is a hard one," he replied putting his hands to his mouth and thinking quietly. "Rosalie's middle name is something like Rustina and we call you Rus for short. Isn't that your nickname?"

"Yes. I like that."

"Great! We haven't had a chance to tell anyone anyway: we did just find out that you were coming to live with us."

"Cool."

"But can you do me a favor and make sure you let Esme and I know when you do decide upon a gender?" he asked. He and my therapist had used that word so many times now that I was pretty sure it meant boy or girl.

"Sure thing Dr. Cullen."

"Russell, now that you live with me you have to call me Carlisle, Dad, or Uncle. None of this Dr. Cullen nonsense; that is for my patients."

"Okay Uncle," I replied, not wanting to get my hopes up regarding the prospects of actually having a dad. I had never had one of those before.

"And I think now is as good a time as any to introduce you to our friends and try out this lie. We will only invite over our closest friends, so if we mess up, it will still be okay. What do you say to a party to celebrate your coming home? Is that alright with you? If not, we can always have one another time."

"A party for me?" I asked surprised. I had never had a party before.

"Just for you. Esme will make a pie. Do you like blackberry pie?"

"Yay! Can I go tell Edward and Jasper?" I asked excitedly.

"Yes and then you can go play with them until our guests arrive. Do you want to play in your room or in the living room?"

"I want to play with my teddy bear. Can I bring her into the living room?"

"Sure can, just as long as she goes back to your room when you are done. Let's go get her," he said getting up to wheel me back to my room.

"What did you name her?" he asked handing me my teddy.

"Lily," I answered, snuggling my bear again.

Dr. Cullen took me to the living room, sat me down in a recliner, and propped my cast up on the foot rest. Then Jasper and Edward came running down the stairs, each carrying a stuffed animal.

"Guess what?" I asked them as they came to a stop by my chair.

"What?" Edward asked excitedly, waving around a stuffed monkey by the arm.

"Carlisle said that we are having a party for me. And Esme is gonna make pie!" I exclaimed.

"Yay, pie!" Jasper replied hugging the stuffed horse he was holding.

"I bet Bella comes over!" Edward took off the backpack he had been wearing, turned it upside down and dumped the contents onto the living room floor: a pile of small clothes fell out. "Build-a-Bear clothes," Edward explained. "They will fit all of our animals." Then he picked up a pink sweeter and put it on his monkey.

"Even Jasper's horse?" I asked curiously.

"Yep," Jasper answered putting a pair of blue jeans on his horse.

"What do you want to put on your bear?" Edward asked holding up clothes for me to see.

"That one!' I said as he held up a black shirt with a pirate symbol on it. He tossed me the shirt, and I put it on Lily the bear. While I was doing that, I noticed that both the bear and the shirt had Build-a-Bear labels. I guess that is why the clothes fit all three animals.

While the three of us played with our stuffed animals, Carlisle came in and explained the plan to Edward and Jasper, who both agreed to call me Rus and pretend I had a sick twin brother. Carlisle made all of us practice role playing with the stuffed animals and my new name, to make sure we all had the lie down. The four of us were still playing when there was a knock on the front door.

"That's Bella!" Edward shouted running towards the door, while Carlisle followed quietly after.

"We need to clean up," Jasper said shoving all of the spare clothes back into the backpack. Then he put his horse and Edward's monkey in the chair with me, before disappearing upstairs with the bag.

"Rus, this is my best friend Bella. Bella, this is my new sister Rus," Edward said as he ran back into the room with a little brown haired girl.

"Hi," I greeted, not really sure what to say.

"It's nice to meet you," Bella replied as Jasper ran back down the stairs.

"Rus broke her leg, but now she gets to stay with us. Maybe the judge will let us adopt her and then I can keep her forever!" Edward exclaimed.

Jasper, on the other hand, grabbed a book from the bookshelf and sat down to read. He caught me eyeing him, so he ran to my room and came back with a book for me. It was called Pig Wigs and was the latest book my teacher had left me. But I had not wanted the book: I wanted to know why Jasper had retreated when company came over. Surely Jasper had known Edward's best friend longer than he had known me.

"Jasper doesn't talk to other people outside of the family, remember? You are family now," Edward explained.

Just then the doorbell rang again and once again, Edward ran to the door to answer it. "It's Henry," Edward called from the entry way.

This caught Jasper's attention, because he put down his book and ran to the door. He came back a minute later with a boy who looked closer to mine and Edward's age than his own. "This is my best friend Henry. Henry, this is our new sister Rus," Jasper announced quietly.

Henry and I exchanged greetings, but then Esme and Carlisle came in with Henry's parents and sisters, as well as Bella's dad. And with all of those people in the room, Jasper looked like he was going to freak.

But before Jasper could freak, Henry grabbed a football from the hall closet and they went outside. "Jasper has trouble around so many people, so he's not going to be back until the party dies down," Edward explained.

After that, Edward and Bella spent most of the party talking to each other and playing some weird game with their hands. They tried to include me, but I was way out of the loop, and Henry and Bella's parents kept coming over to talk to me. Mostly the three adults wanted to know about my life before the Cullens, so I told them about my sisters and added in some made-up stuff about my pretend brother Russell, which seemed to satisfy them.

And not only did I have to spend most of the time talking to the adults, but the one time Bella did speak directly to me was when she asked me, "Hey, didn't Edward say your name was Rosalie?"

"Rosalie is my first name. Rus is my middle name," I lied not knowing what to say.

Luckily Carlisle overheard and came over to help me out, because all of the grown-ups had turned around to stare at me. "Her full name is Rosalie Rustina, but we call her Rus,"  
>he explained.<p>

"Her little sisters Lily and Daisy were caught first, because they stayed put. But Rus and her twin brother ran into the forest. He got away, but she got caught because she fell and broke that leg. I just got a call Friday that they found the boy hiding out in the forest. He was really ill, so they rushed him straight to the hospital in Port Angeles. Lily was sent with Daisy, and they let us take Rus for now because of the leg. Otherwise, she would have to stay in the hospital for another week. But the courts are still deciding who gets which child, so this placement isn't permanent," Carlisle lied.

Apparently everyone bought the lie, so they allowed Carlisle to change the subject. Overall, the party was pretty boring and more than once I found myself wishing I could go outside with Jasper. I would have if not for the cast. The best part of the party was when Esme brought me a slice of pie. Do not get me wrong, Esme is a great cook and her dinner was delicious, but her pie was the best tasting thing ever. Jasper even made a reappearance long enough to snag a piece of pie before going outside again. And after the pie was gone, our guests all left saying that it was a school night.

Once we were all ready for bed, Jasper and Edward climbed into bed with me, while Esme read us a bedtime story. It was called Cinderella, but I do not remember how it ended, because I fell asleep in the middle of it.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: The truth is out: Russell is genetically male. But that doesn't necessarily mean his brain is male. What do you think?<p> 


	20. Chapter 19

Russell's POV:

I got to stay with the Cullens and my teacher came over to teach me at home every day. Mrs. Barnes said I was doing really well in school and that I should be able to start second grade with the rest of my class next year. But Carlisle did not like that idea one bit: he said he wanted Mrs. Barnes to keep teaching me all summer and all next year and the summer after that if need be. I was supposed to be in Edward's grade and he wanted my one-on-one tutoring to continue until I was. I was three whole grades behind Edward, but as long as Carlisle had the money, Mrs. Barnes was willing to teach me.

After homeschool, my therapist would come over. Dr. Flynn told the Cullens that I was doing a really good job in therapy too, although all I really did was talk to her, so I was not sure how I could mess that up. Dr. and Mrs. Cullen liked her so much that they asked her to be Jasper and Edward's therapist too. So now she sticks around until they come home from school and takes them into their rooms to talk. Dr. Flynn said Edward was just as good at therapy as I was, but she said Jasper needed to work a little harder. I was a little surprised because I was not aware of anything Jasper had ever failed at before.

Jasper even got in really big trouble because of therapy. I do not know what happened to set him off, but he ran out of the room, slammed the door in Dr. Flynn's face, and ran off into the woods. Apparently after that he snuck around to the garage and grabbed his bike and rode it to the neighbor's house. Mrs. Cullen was really upset and worried until Henry's mom called and said he showed up at her house.

Needless to say, after that stunt Jasper got in big trouble and he was grounded for a whole week. And he had to have extra therapy, which he said was the worst punishment, because he could read while grounded. Being told to go read was more of a treat than a punishment to him. And since I was still stuck in the house because of my broken leg and Jasper was grounded, I decided to ask him what had happened with Dr. Flynn in the first place.

"Nothing," he answered, obviously not telling the truth.

"I like Dr. Flynn. She's really nice. Mostly she lets me talk about whatever I want and how I feel and watches me play. Today she just watched me play with my cars for an hour."

"She never lets me play cars."

"Have you tried? When I don't feel like talking, but want to play, I just tell her I had a long day and want to play and she lets me."

"She takes my toys away and says I need to talk to her. Show me what you do when you play, so I can do it too. Please?" he asked me.

"Okay, go get my bin of cars and I'll show you. She just watches me and takes notes for hours."

Jasper went to my room and came back with the cars, so I dumped them out on the floor and asked Esme to help me get down out of the recliner in the living room and onto the floor to play. Once I was down, I picked up my dark blue car and showed Jasper. "This is the daddy car. And the red one is the mommy car. And the orange one is you, the pink one is Edward, the yellow one is Lily, the purple one is Daisy, the green one is me, and the black one is Mrs. Barnes. See this green one has to go to school with Mrs. Barnes because he is a stupid car. But then he gets to go home with the red car and be told how pretty he is and put on this other outer shell."

Esme had gotten me a car with interchangeable parts, so I could take the green shell off and pop on a shiny red one. After I showed that cool car to Jasper, I pulled out my white car. "But this white car is the red/green car's old mommy and then she makes him take care of the yellow and purple cars while she goes to work. The white car is gonna come and take him away from the blue and red cars, but he doesn't want to go," I finished. That was what I had been playing this afternoon for Dr. Flynn.

"Cool! I normally just race the cars and pretend they crash and blow up or are shooting at each other. Can I borrow your cars and play that game for Dr. Flynn tomorrow?" he asked me with wide eyes.

"Sure, but why don't you use your cars to play my game?"

"Okay, but I want to use that changing car too. I think that's what Dr. Flynn likes."

"Are you just trying to figure out how to beat the system?" I asked. Lily used to try to cheat on her homework and I never let her do that. How would she grow up to be smart if she was allowed to cheat?

"Yeah, but only a little. I really do like your cars and I want to play cars for Dr. Flynn instead of talking. I know: how about tomorrow you come in with me and we play cars together?"

"Okay Jazz, that sound fun. But after that you have to promise me that you will talk to her and try harder in therapy."

"Kay. You want to read a book now?" he asked excitedly.

So I let Jasper read me a book. He somehow always knew what book Mrs. Barnes was going to bring next and would read it to me before she came so that I would already know a few of the words. It made me feel smart when I knew some of the words. Jasper and I had really bonded now that we were brothers.

Jasper got off of being grounded the day before I got my cast off so we were begging Esme to take us out somewhere. I really liked Esme and Carlisle and I was really hoping that they would adopt me. They both told me that they had asked the judge to adopt me. And the judge had already said that I was not going back to my real mom, ever. Now it just depended on if the judge thought that the Cullens would be able to take good care of me. So I was keeping my fingers crossed that I would have a new mom and dad soon.

I sometimes slipped and called Esme and Carlisle, Mom and Dad, but normally I still called them aunt and uncle. I did not want to call them Mom and Dad until it was official. I told Dr. Flynn that and she said that it was fine. And Esme and Carlisle did not seem to mind me calling them aunt and uncle, so everything seemed to be fine.

"Can we go to the movies on Saturday?" Edward asked Esme as she served us dinner the night Jasper got off grounding.

"I want to see the new Harry Potter movie!" Jasper announced. "And I was really good at therapy today."

I had gone with Jasper to therapy the day after our talk and Dr. Flynn watched us play cars together. He crashed the cars a lot, and I did not want him chipping the paint on my cars, so he asked Esme to buy him his own changing cars. She had said no at first, because he was in trouble, but as soon as he said that they were for therapy, she rushed right out and bought him three. Once he got the cars, he named the first one Jasper, the second one Edward, and the third one Russell. And ever since he showed Dr. Flynn those cars, she has let him play cars in therapy, just as long as he tells her how the cars _feel_.

Jasper kept coming to me before therapy and asking me how his purple car felt. I told him he had to figure that out for himself. He would come back after therapy and tell me the purple car felt sad and scared because he missed his mommy, but he liked being purple. Then he would tell me that the red car wanted to be purple too, but his daddy made him be red all of the time. Then he would say the yellow car was just really mad that the black car always wanted to talk and know how all of the cars felt, when he just really wanted to read.

"Dr. Flynn did say you've been doing much better in therapy Jazz… But we'll have to wait for your uncle to get home and ask him if he'll go with us," Esme replied.

"Why do we need to ask him to go with us to the store if I'll have my cast off?" I asked. "I should be able to walk."

"We aren't going to the store, Rus!" Edward exclaimed.

"Rus, have you ever been to a movie theater?" Esme asked me.

I did not even know what a movie theater was, so Esme explained it to me. She said it was a big room with a giant TV screen where we could watch a movie before it came out on DVD. There was a movie theater in Port Angeles, which was kind of far, but we could go as a family as long as Carlisle did not have to work.

When Carlisle got home, he said a movie on Saturday was fine and that I had to get up early to go with him to work the next day. He said he would remove my cast and then Esme would take me back home after dropping my brothers off at school. And I could move into my new room upstairs as soon as I got back.

I had yet to see my new room, but Esme was always asking me how I wanted it and showing me pictures of it. So far she had panted it red and added race-track trim along the top. She bought me a race car bedding set and curtains to match, along with a stuffed car for my bed. She said that she was painting all of my shelves red, but my bed was an antique one that came with the house, so she was not going to change that. Jasper told me that there was even a race-track rug on the old wooden floor.

I was really excited about getting my cast off and being able to walk again, but I was mostly excited about seeing my new room. Sure my pink room downstairs was really nice, but I really wanted my car room upstairs. Getting the new room would even make having to do my chores worth it.

Esme said that as soon as my cast was off, I would have to do the same amount of chores as Edward and Jasper. They had to make their beds, set the table, load the dish-washer after dinner, as well as pick up after themselves. I already helped make my bed and pick up after myself, but in my cast, someone always had to help me and do most of the work.

Someone also had to help me with normal stuff that I used to do by myself before, like getting dressed. I was looking forward to being able to dress myself again. Edward already had to dress Jasper every day, so Esme had been dressing me. But now I was going to have to split dressing Jasper with Edward.

I was not sure why Jasper could not dress himself, but I figured it was just because they baby him. He was the baby in the house, and as such, he was spoiled rotten. Well Edward was too, but he at least dressed himself and did not run away when we had company. Jasper was allowed to get away with most anything, and Carlisle just blamed it on some phobia of his. I wish I could get away with that.

So I went to bed Thursday night thinking about all of the things I would get to do tomorrow with my cast off. And just as he promised, Carlisle came in bright and early and woke me up. He helped me make my bed and get dressed and then we were off to the hospital and before I knew it, my cast was off.

I was a bit surprised to see my leg. Not only was it really pale from being in the cast for so long, but also I now had a wicked scar right where the bone had broken through. I had seen my leg twice before; on both occasions Carlisle had been changing my cast. But the first time the scar still had the stiches in. He removed the stitches and put on the new cast, all with me watching. But the second time he changed my cast, Edward and Jasper were with us and had been distracting me at the time, so I did not get a good look before I was in the new cast.

I was still getting used to the feel of fresh air on my leg when Esme arrived to take me home. We barely even got one load of my toys up to my new room before Mrs. Barnes showed up and I had to go to school. But at least after school, Dr. Flynn let me show her my new room for therapy.

My room was so cool I spent the rest of the evening organizing all of my toys. And before I knew it, it was Saturday morning and I was going to see my first ever movie in a theater. I was really excited, but first I had to do my chores. I made my bed and then I went to Jasper's room to help him get dressed.

Jasper and Edward both had rooms on the other side of the hall, while my room was on the same side of the hall as Esme and Carlisle's. Jasper's room was the closest to mine, so I walked directly across the hall and knocked before letting myself in. He was lying on his already made bed just reading a book. The fact that he was not even trying to get dressed made me mad, so I ordered, "Get dressed Jasper so we can go to the movies." Then I started looking through his toys.

Jasper listened and went straight to his dresser. But instead of picking his clothes and getting dressed, he pulled every drawer out and set them on his floor. Then he started taking every object out of every drawer and looking at it before throwing it into one big pile. No wonder my chore was to make him get dressed. "Stop Jazz. Just pick one piece from each drawer and put it on," I ordered as I flopped down on his bed.

So Jasper pulled out a sweater, a pair of jeans, a pair of shorts, a long sleeved shirt, a short sleeved shirt, a pair of pajamas, and a pair of underwear, but no socks. "No Jasper, just one shirt and one shorts or one pants. No pajamas and get some socks," I corrected, pointing to the items to put back.

"But the shorts and the pants were in different drawers!"

"I know, but it's either or."

"Fine, but the underwear and socks are in the same drawer and you said only one from each," he complained as he put the long sleeved shirt, the pajamas, and the pants back.

"I know, but you need socks and underwear, so you need one of each even though they are in the same drawer."

Fine," he grumbled and grabbed a pair of socks.

Then he stripped, put on a pair of boxers, followed by the shirt, shorts, and socks. He was leaning down to grab his shoes before I looked at him and what he was wearing: the shirt had blue and green stripes and was wide enough, but way too short, because two inches of his stomach could be seen hanging out the bottom. The shorts fit fine, but they had a red and yellow checked pattern and did not match the shirt in the least. The socks, on the other hand, were covered in orange and yellow dinosaurs, while the edge of his red and pink heart patterned boxers could be seen poking out the top of his shorts.

I started laughing and shaking my head as I pointed at his clothes. "No Jasper, you have to match the clothes and that shirt is too small."

He pulled off the shirt and grabbed the one I pointed to, which was solid red and actually fit. But I could tell he was getting frustrating, so I did not even mention that he still looked dorky and just let him put his drawers back. But when he was putting his sock and underwear drawer back, it fell on his foot, making a loud thumping noise and causing him to curl up into a ball clutching his foot.  
>"What happened?" Carlisle asked when he and Esme came into the room. Carlisle went immediately to Jasper and picked him up from the floor.<p>

"He dropped the drawer on his foot," I answered, hoping that I was not in trouble, but not seeing how this could possibly be my fault.

Carlisle carried Jasper downstairs, probably to ice the foot, while Esme picked up the drawer and put it away. While she was picking up the clothing scattered around the room and returning them to the dresser she spoke, "You know Russell, dressing Jasper is on the list of chores for a reason. Different people have trouble with different things. You have trouble reading, while he has trouble getting dressed. Helping you read is on Jasper's list of chores and I have not seen him slack off on that chore once."

"Yes Ma'am."

"Now I'm sure you thought that you could just teach him to dress himself like you did your sisters, but everyone needs to be taught things at their own pace. He learns almost everything lightening quick, but when he struggles with something, he really struggles. He is still learning to pair shorts with tee-shirts and pants with sweaters. Then he will need to match patterns. And only after that might he be able to pick through an entire dresser and come back up with a set of clothes that will do.

"I was going to let you kids play until the movie starts, but now we have to clean up this room. And neither you nor Jasper is dressed and I still have not made breakfast. So I would suggest that next time you get this chore, you pick out his clothes and hand them to him. He can put them on himself. We spent all last year teaching him to put his clothes on himself and let me tell you that that was a lot of work."

"Yes Ma'am," I replied. I had no idea that Jasper had such trouble getting dressed. But now that I knew that he was not just faking it to be babied, I figured I would have no choice but to pick out his clothes for him. So I got up from the bed and started folding clothes from the big pile Jasper had left on the floor.

"Now pick out something nice for Jasper to wear because Edward is wearing slacks and a tie and I assume you are going to wear a nice sundress," Esme said when we finished cleaning the room.

So I went to Jasper's closet and pulled out his nice vest with a clean white shirt and a pair of slacks. Then I went back to the dresser and retrieved a white pair of socks, before digging his dress shoes out from under the bed. Then I went downstairs to find Jasper.

"Sorry Jazz, I didn't know," I apologized as I set his clothes down on the couch. I was going to dress him right there, but then Carlisle called us all to come eat breakfast: Jasper had been helping him make waffles.

So after Jasper and I ate, we washed up and I helped him get dressed. Then I went upstairs and looked through my closet for something to wear. This problem was a bit backwards from what I was used to, because I had so many nice clothes here. It was a warm day, so I decided on my lavender sundress and a white sweater to match. Then I grabbed white socks with lace and matching white sandals. Finally I retrieved a pair of underwear, but these were the only thing I grabbed from the boy's side.

Over the last three months that I had been staying with the Cullens, I had worn clothes from both the girl and the boy side, but after I tried each kind, I tended to pick a favorite. I liked the jeans and the underwear on the boy's side better, but I liked the shirts and the dresses from the girl's side. While socks and shoes I just went with whatever matched best.

The Cullens were still telling people that I was a girl named Rus, but they said that I was something called a Tom-boy, which was apparently a girl who likes some boy things. And my imaginary twin brother must be really sick, because we were still saying he was in the hospital. But in the entire three months that I had that cast on, I barely got to leave the house, so our plan of avoiding people was working.

This was going to be my first time going to Port Angeles and to a movie theater, so I wanted to look really pretty. I wanted for strangers in Port Angeles to comment on how cute I was and say they liked my dress. Therefore, after I got dressed and combed my hair, I went downstairs and asked Esme to braid it. She did and she even added cute little lavender clips to my hair.

After that, we were all ready to go and piled into Carlisle's car for the long trip to the city. Jasper, Edward, and I all sat in the back and played on the way, but I was still glad to get out and stretch my legs once we arrived. The theater was huge and cooler than I thought: they had popcorn and nachos and an arcade.

We were a little early for the movie, so Esme and Carlisle went to get snacks and gave Jasper, Edward, and me some coins to go play in the arcade. But I had only played one game before I had to go to the bathroom: we had been in the car for a long time and I had to go. I was the oldest and I was not worried about going by myself, but I had never been left with Jasper and Edward before and I was worried about leaving them alone. What if something happened to them while I was gone?  
>So I told Edward my dilemma, and he said that I could go and he and Jasper would be fine because we could still see where his parents were waiting in line from the arcade. He said he and Jasper had been left alone in the arcade before, so I pointed to the restroom signs and said I would be right back.<p>

I had been to the restroom in public places before, but I had not been out of the house much since my broken leg. In fact, I had only been out four times before, and they were all quick errands, which were too short for bathroom trips. But I had done this a million times before, so I went in the men's room, pulled up my dress, and used the urinal.

I tucked myself back in and pulled down my dress before turning around to wash my hands. But when I turned around, I noticed that a big man was staring at me. I quickly walked towards the door to try to get out of here, because I knew the look on his face meant that there was going to be trouble: I could wash my hands later as long as I got away first. But he stepped in front of me and blocked my way. "Why are you wearing a dress little boy?" he asked me.

"I'm a girl. Please let me go back to my mommy and daddy," I requested while still backing up.

"I saw you just now: you pulled out your penis to take a whiz, just like every other boy. Why do your parents let you dress like that? Are they queer?"

"I don't know what you are talking about. I pee standing up because I have a birth defect, but I'm a girl. Just ask my parents, they are right outside!" I cried starting to get really worried about where this was going.

"You are a girl with a penis?" Penis was that fancy word Carlisle was always using for pee-pee.

"Y-yes. Please don't hurt me. I just got out of the hospital and I don't want to go back!"

"So if I look, everything besides the penis is going to look like a girl?"

"Yes. I have girl parts. Here, I'll show you," I said pulling up my dress as he backed me into the corner.

And that was when the door opened and I could just barely make out Carlisle's blond hair behind the big scary man. "Daddy! Help me! Please!" I yelled.

"Edward, go tell Mommy to call the police," I heard Carlisle say before the door opened and closed again. "Sir, please step away from my daughter. I'm sorry for the confusion, but we just got custody of her and this is the first time she's used the restroom in a public place. If you will just back up, I'll ask my wife to take her into the women's room."

"So you're the fag who dresses your son up like a girl?" the man asked turning around.

I probably should have ran away or at least put my dress down, but as it was, I was so scared that I just froze there in the corner of the men's room. "What have you been doing to her? Why is your dress up Rustina?" Carlisle asked me.

"Your daughter's name is Rustina? I don't think so. I think you're raising Rusty here to be a cross-dresser and that's just _wrong_. I should take you out and then this kid can go to a normal family and be raised as a boy!" the scary man shouted as he walked towards Carlisle.

I was really worried that Carlisle was going to get hurt, but I could not think of what I should do, so I just stood there watching. Jasper, however, had a much better grasp on what to do in these situations. "No Jasper! Come back here!" I heard Esme shout as the bathroom door opened again and Jasper entered.

"Jasper, go back to Esme now. You too Rustina, go with Jasper and I'll be right out," Carlisle said as he glanced over his shoulder at Jasper.

Carlisle probably should not have turned away from the scary man, because while he was doing so, the man stepped closer and grabbed him by the throat. I screamed, but Jasper jumped on the man's back and grabbed his neck until he let Carlisle go. Jasper kept his hold on the man's neck while his faced turned first red, then blue, and then white. The man fought at first, and I thought he was going to buck Jasper off. But Jasper just held on all the tighter.

"Let go Jasper! You can stop choking him now," Carlisle ordered when the man fell to the floor, with Jasper still on him.

"No! If I let go, he'll just get up and hurt Russell!" Jasper said while he continued to choke the man.

"Are you okay Russell? Put your dress down. Did he touch you?" Carlisle asked me.

I was too scared to know how to respond to that, so I just started crying. Carlisle came over and picked me up, before taking me out to Esme. She sat down in a chair and held me as I cried while Carlisle went back inside the restroom for about three minutes before returning with Jasper in his arms. "He's dead," Carlisle told Esme while setting Jasper down next to Edward. "Jasper's fine. I think Rus is just in shock. How long until the police arrive?"

"I called them ten minutes ago when Edward came running out," Esme replied. "It's a good thing Jasper mentioned that Rus went into the wrong restroom when he did, or that man could have really hurt her before we realized that anything was wrong."

"Did he hurt you Russell?" Carlisle asked me again, this time bending down to my level and looking me in the eyes.

"N-n-no, but he was going to. I don't want to wear dresses anymore!" I cried as I hid my face in Esme's neck.

After that, the police came and questioned us. Mostly they wanted to talk to Jasper and Carlisle, but they also asked me and Edward a few questions. They even questioned Esme. They kept coming back to questions about Jasper though, which seemed really weird to me, because the dead guy was the bad man who had tried to hurt us.

"Okay, it looks like your family was the victim in all this, but your youngest son still killed a man tonight," a guy with a badge said. "I'm gonna let you all go, except for the boy. I'm gonna have to take Jasper Whitlock in for a mental evaluation. It's standard procedure."

"He already has a psychiatrist at Forks Community Hospital, Dr. Flynn. I'll call her and she'll meet us there," Carlisle replied.

"So the boy has a past history of mental disturbances?" the policeman asked.

"No. He witnessed the deaths of his parents a few years ago. It was upsetting, so my wife and I make him go to therapy. In fact, we make all of our children go," Carlisle answered.

After that the policeman agreed to take Jasper to Carlisle's hospital, but said he was going to drive him in the back of a cruiser. Carlisle agreed, but went with them, while Esme put Edward and me back in our car and followed.

It was only the afternoon when we arrived, but I was so exhausted from the morning's events that I laid down on the couch in the waiting room and took a nap. By the time I woke up, Jasper was cleared to go home with us, but Esme said I had to go talk to Dr. Flynn while we were there.

When Dr. Flynn asked how I was doing and I answered, "I'm still really scared. I just wanna go home and have Mommy hug me until I feel better. Can we talk about it tomorrow?"

"Sure thing. It's very understandable to be feeling scared after that man tried to hurt you," she replied before letting me go back to my family.

The first thing I did when I got home was change into all boy clothes and take out my braids. Then I found a pair of kid's scissors from an arts and craft kit I had gotten for my tenth birthday and cut my hair off. I did not cut it all the way to the scalp, but I wanted it to be short like the last time I had gotten it cut.

"What did you do to your hair princess?" Esme asked when I came down the stairs with my new look.

"I don't want to be your princess anymore. I want to be your son," I said, trying not to cry.

"Of course you can be my prince, come here Rus," she said holding out her arms. "We'll go get your hair fixed tomorrow."

I spent the rest of the day like that in Esme's arms. She took me to get my hair cut straight Sunday and made me talk to Dr. Flynn about my sudden gender change on Monday. But after watching what Jasper had done to protect me, I was through being the helpless little girl: it was time for me to be Russell, the older brother again.

Next time something bad happened, I wanted to be the one to save Jasper and Edward. I hated that it had been the other way around. And once I stepped back into the role of big brother, I realized that being the big brother at the Cullen house was exactly the same as being the big sister had been: Esme and Carlisle still took care of me. I did not have to do any additional chores or have any added responsibilities. I just had to be a kid.

Dr. Flynn made me have extra-long therapy sessions all summer. But one day in August we had a breakthrough when she realized something. "You've associated being a boy with your old life of having to care for two younger siblings and being a girl with being taken care of like a child. When you realized that you could be a boy and a child, you decided to be a boy again," she said.

I did not really understand what Dr. Flynn said, but my changes had all made perfect sense to me all along, so if it now made sense to her too, I was happy. But after that she said that Rustina was my crutch, while Russell was the real me, so she even helped me get rid of all of the girl stuff left over from my time as Rustina. We gave all of my dresses to Edward and donated the rest of my girl clothes to other foster children. And she even sat down with us when I told the Cullens that I was going to be a boy from now on.

The Cullens already had a plan in place for the big switch, so Carlisle told everyone that since Rustina's leg had healed, Social Services had sent her to live with Rosalie, Lily, and Daisy, and Russell, the boy twin, had a miraculous recovery. Carlisle said that this fake recovery would be more convincing if I really was recovering when he brought Russell home from the hospital and that I just happened to need a little surgery.

Carlisle said I had something called a hernia, which was a small tear on my insides. I had never noticed it before, but he pushed on my tummy to show me where it was. It hurt really bad when he pushed, but as soon as he let go, I could not feel it again. He said that the hernia was next to my jellybeans on my insides and that it needed to be repaired before I could go to normal school and run around outside with my brothers.

Carlisle said he had put off repairing the hernia before because he knew how much I did not want to go back into the hospital and the hernia was small so it could wait. But it would be best to do the surgery before my switch to Russell, so that Carlisle could have a sick little boy to show off to support our lie. And that was just what we did.


	21. Chapter 20

Author's note: Posting of this chapter was delayed by hurricane Irene and my complete lack of power for three days. But the power is back on now and I'm back!

* * *

><p>Carlisle's POV:<p>

After the incident in Port Angeles when Russell was attacked and Jasper killed the attacker with his bare hands, Esme and I were worried sick that we would get Russell taken away from us. Esme, Mrs. Howe, and I went back and forth with a judge for several days, but since the police reports clearly indicated that the incident was not our fault, the judge let us keep our daughter.

But terror over the prospects of losing our daughter to the system was nothing compared to the horror I had felt during the actual attack. At first I had been out of my mind with worry for Russell, then fear for myself, and finally shock over how it all ended and worry for Jasper. You have no idea how frightening it is to have your child endanger like that until you actually live it: it was like Edward and SARS all over again.

I cannot even describe how I felt walking into that bathroom to find Russell with the skirt of her dress up like that and being cornered by such a large man. I was certain he was planning on molesting her; why else would she have her skirt like that? And although she was clearly scared and trying to flee, she was not putting up a fight at all. I had Edward and Jasper in self-defense classes, but Russell had just gotten her cast off, so I had not had a chance to sign her up too.

I kept thinking that if we got out of this, the first thing I would do was teach my daughter to defend herself. In fact, I was clearly in need of some self-defense classes myself, so I should bring Esme as well and make it a family lesson. I had always thought that I could take care of myself, but I just felt so helpless during that attack. I was so distracted by trying to keep my children safe, that I had been totally useless in the fight. Even Edward, who had run for help, had a bigger role in saving my daughter than me.

Russell's attacker was only an inch taller than me, but he was twice as wide, and it appeared to be all muscle. Being pitted against him made me feel inadequate and puny. I had always been a man of intellect, not brawn, and I never regretted it more than that day in that bathroom in Port Angeles. I kept thinking that maybe if I worked out more, I would have been able to fight that man off and save my children myself, so I made a resolution to hit the gym at least once a week, in addition to signing the family up for self-defense classes.

I later learned that the attacker was part of the local skin-head gang in Port Angeles. His name was Joham and he had a family full of fellow skin-heads who were outraged that one of their members had been taken out by an eight year-old boy. They attempted to launch a campaign to have Jasper removed from society and placed in a mental institution for the criminally violent. But not only did Dr. Flynn clear my boy, but several other State psychiatrists also ruled that Jasper was not the least bit violent.

Esme and I were scared to death for the longest time that the skin-heads might succeed in taking our youngest son from us, but we did not want the children to worry. We tried to keep them out of it as much as possible, so we never took them with us to the lawyer meetings, court dates, or visits to the police station in Port Angeles. Charlie helped out a lot too; not only did he babysit, but he also talked to the police in Port Angeles for us. I think having him on our side really helped make the whole situation go away quicker.

Legal concerns were not our only concern regarding Jasper, because we were also worried about the ramifications that the taking of a life would have on our fragile little boy. He had already watched his mother as she was ran over in a parking lot and had been the one to discover his father's body after the suicide, and now he had taken a life. I had expected the event to be emotionally traumatizing, damaging, and for my son to be inconsolable with grief.

But instead, when I went back into that bathroom after dropping Russell off with Esme, I found Jasper standing over the body with a grin on his face. "I did it! I saved Russell! Are you proud of me Uncle Carlisle?" Jasper had asked me.

I was not sure exactly how to respond to that. Sure I was grateful to the boy for saving me and Russell, but there was no reason for this to have had to end with a death. All life had value and as a doctor, I was sworn to do no harm. So when I discerned that Joham was unconscious, I had asked Jasper to let go, thinking that I could get my children to safety before our attacker came to.

But Jasper had refused and continued to hold on. I considered physically intervening for a moment, but then I looked at my daughter still standing in the corner with her dress up, and I knew that I could not do anything more with that child still in the room. So I picked Russell up and carried her to safety before returning to the situation with Jasper and Joham in the bathroom.

I had still been holding out hope that I would find Joham to be merely unconscious when I re-entered the bathroom, so the first thing I did was check for a heartbeat. When I found none, I turned to Jasper, who was very pleased with himself, and said, "I need you to listen to me and do as I say Jasper. This is very important or you could get in big trouble with the police even though you saved me and Russell. When we walk out of here, you have to be upset that this man died. It was an accident and you did not mean for him to die, only to stop him from hurting us. You were defending us and are happy you saved us, but broken up over the fact that this horrible man died at your hands. Can you do that for me?"

"Of course Uncle, if that is what I need to do," Jasper replied calmly with the smile fading from his face. When it was replaced with an expression of remorse he continued, but with a slight sob to his voice, "I didn't know he would die! I just thought he was going to sleep and I was trying to protect my sister from the big bad man, Sir."

Jasper's one-eighty was so convincing that I almost believed it for a moment. I was a bit concerned that my eight year-old child could be so deceptive, but that concern was quickly replaced with relief and gratitude because this trait was about to come in very handy. I made a mental note to bring this issue up later, but for now I thanked my lucky stars and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, before leading my youngest son out to my wife and the rest of our family.

I watched in amazement as Jasper lied flawlessly to the police and then to Dr. Flynn. The police did not catch it, but Dr. Flynn did notice something was different. "Jasper, you did a really good job opening up to me just now! And you even talked to the police, who were complete strangers! It seems you can do it when you are under stress," Dr. Flynn complimented my boy after he lied to her face.

And as I watched Jasper lie to first the police and then his psychiatrist, I found myself believing him. I started to actually think I had imagined his initial reaction and that the boy genuinely was horrified by what he had accidently done. But that illusion was destroyed the moment Jasper and I were once again alone. "Was that alright, Uncle Carlisle?" Jasper asked me with the smile returning to his face as I put him to bed that night.

And the weird thing was that I actually found myself feeling proud of my boy; not just for saving us, but for killing that man and lying about it too. He had followed my directions perfectly, minimizing the potential repercussions and saving Esme and me from a lot of legal problems. And Russell would probably have been taken away from us if he had not lied, but at the same time I still felt horrified that I had watched him take a life.

Jasper must have noticed my internal struggle, because before I could reply, he asked, "Why do you feel that way? That man was going to hurt my new sister. And I just got used to having a sister!"

I could feel the boy's indignation as if it was physically wafting off of him and onto me. And as I stood warring with his feelings, as well as my own, I actually began to feel anger at myself for even thinking that that man's life had value too. "I'm sorry Jasper, I just had a hard day and I don't know how I feel," I said leaning down to give him a hug.

And when I hugged Jasper, I suddenly saw it all his way. We were all over-reacting over the loss of an insignificant life, while we should have been celebrating and congratulating him on a job well done. Who knows what would have happened if he had not been there to rescue Russell and me. One thing was for certain: Russell was already extremely upset and having to watch me being beaten up by Joham would only have made matters worse.

But as soon as I broke the hug, I remembered a question that had been plaguing my mind all day. "Jasper, how'd you know how to strangle that man like that?" I asked.

"Well I was going to try to snap his neck, but I wasn't strong enough," he replied, not answering the question.

"And where did you learn this? I know they don't teach you that sort of stuff in karate and I know you and Peter are never violent like that when you rough house," I persisted.

"Back in Texas," Jasper answered cryptically.

"Did your dad teach you that?" I asked. He shook his head. "Uncle Hank?" Another head shake. "Other children?" Yet another shake of the head. "The TV?"

Jasper looked me straight in the eyes. "Yes, I saw it on the TV," he answered so smoothly that I almost believed him. If I had not been watching him lie all day I probably would have believed him.

"I don't want you to lie to me, not ever. I was the one who told you how to act to get you out of trouble with the police and Dr. Flynn today. If you want me to continue to hold my tongue with the good doctor, I best not catch you lying to my face," I warned.

"Maria," Jasper answered looking away and fidgeting with his hands.

I knew Jasper was telling the truth this time, because he had resorted to his one word answers. I had begun to notice that lies were smooth and complete sentences where he looked you straight in the eyes, while the truth was choppy, nervous, and fidgeting, while staring down at his hands. No wonder his lies seemed so much more convincing than his truths.

"And how did you learn to lie like that?" I asked.

"Maria," he barely squeaked out in response and pulled his stuffed horse to his chest to cuddle.

"I thought your grandparents told you and Peter to stay away from Maria?" I asked wondering just what was really up with that woman.

"Only recently," he replied curtly.

"Well please tell me the full story with Maria then."

"Maria has a cabin," he began but stalled. I watched him very closely the entire time for signs that he was lying to me again, but although he spoke in full sentences now, he never made eye contact and continued to stop and fidget. He was full of nerves, so I was fairly certain I was getting the truth as he continued, "off of the road… on the other side of the river… in back of my parents' house… Peter and I… we used to go out back and play… but she would call us over… from across the river."

I nodded, silently urging him to continue.

"From as long as I can remember… Maria liked me… she'd tell me… that as soon as I grew up… she was gonna come for me. S-s-she… she said I had something special… and I would be her second in command… She told me stories of vampire wars… She was gone most of the time... but when she'd come back… she'd have new s-s-soldiers with her… and new tales of battle.

"Maria s-s-said that she'd been w-w-watching my family for Peter… she saw him… and she wanted him… for her army… but then she saw me… and she knew… that I'd be hers… The night my dad died… Maria knew. She came bursting into our house… through my window… she opened it… and she climbed through like a ghost… but I saw her… she flashed passed me… and I followed.

"I found her… in my dad's room… leaning over him… trying to revive him… She just kept saying… how she needed him… he had to be alive… for her plan… She kept muttering… to herself… that she couldn't… raise two human boys herself… She leaned down… over him… and she bit him… and she did chest compressions… but he was already dead… there was nothing she could do.

"Finally… after a really long time…she gave up… she told me… that I'd have to… call nine-one-one… and report the death… She leaned me over him… and she made me… preform… t-t-the chest… compressions… until my h-h-hands… were smeared with b-b-blood. Then she instructed me… through the phone call… and she waited… with me… until the cops came… She said… that I would… have to go… live with… my grandparents… down the street… but she told me… not to worry… because… she'd still… come back… for me… and she'd… find me later… She said… we'd still… be together.

"But… my grandparents… didn't want me… and they ruined… her plan. She came… and found me… at Hank's ranch… and she told me… to go… with my aunt. But… she said… she'd still… find me… when I… grow up… She said… I'd still… be part of her army… and I'd be… her second in command," Jasper finished, with a sob.

I was not sure what to make of this story. Jasper clearly believed it, but I was fairly certain that Maria had been lying to him about the wars and the army and I certainly did not believe in vampires. She probably knew how much he liked war stories and told him all of that to lure him in. But what she really wanted with him, I could not be certain. My original fear that she was a child molester popped back into my head, so I questioned Jasper quite thoroughly on this subject and got nowhere: she had never touched him inappropriately. She had smelled him and grabbed his arms and chest, but that was it.

Maria was a bit of a conundrum, but then it occurred to me that she might be a cult leader. She must have wanted Jasper and Peter for her cult and told these strange stories to lure the boys in. She was probably waiting until they were teenagers and was upset that their parents had died prematurely because their deaths interfered with her plan. Either that or she was waiting until they were older to molest them.

But none of this explained how Jasper knew to kill a man with his bare hands, so I asked again, "Jasper, how does all of this with Maria relate to what happened today? How did you know how to kill that man?"

Jasper just shrugged and answered, "Maria taught us," while looking down at his stuffed horse.

"Maria taught you and Peter? Where, when, and how?" I pressed for details.

"In her cabin… The grown-ups… they think… that that is her house… where she lives… but… really it's empty inside… and… she uses it… mostly to hide in… during the day… while she watched… Peter and me."

"Why would she need to hide during the day?" I asked confused.

"Because her skin… sparkles like crystals… in the sun… She only lets… the adults see her… at night… or… when it's cloudy," he answered.

"Did you see her sparkling?" I asked wondering if I had somehow missed something. Was Jasper pulling the wool over my eyes?

"Yes, but… only once. She was all covered up… from head to toe… like a Muslim… She reached out… her gloved hand for mine… and a bit… of her wrist… slipped through… and… it casted rainbow sparkles… into my eyes… and blinded me."

This sounded more like the mistake of a young child than that a woman's skin had really been so iridescent. She probably had on an expensive diamond bracelet that had blinded him. So I brushed the peculiarity away and asked Jasper to continue with his story.

"Sometimes… Maria'd bring… regular men with her… and she'd beat them up… in front of us. Other times… she'd bring soldiers… like her. She taught us… to wrestle… and to fight… and showed us… how to kill… She said that… she'd teach us… to be lethal… when we were older… but… for now… she just wanted… us to be able to… defend ourselves… she needed us… and she didn't want us… getting hurt… while she was away.

"She showed us… lots of moves… including several ways… to kill an attacker… She said that… if someone was hurting us… never stop defending ourselves… and to never… ever turn our backs… until they were dead… She said… turning your back… on the enemy… was a rookie mistake… and she'd be livid… if she ever heard… of either of us… doing that... She can be frightening… when she wants to be… so I believed her. She let us practice… on strange men… that she would bring us… but that was… a long time ago... and she only came… about once a month… so the rest of the time… we were left to… practice by ourselves… I couldn't practice… death grips… on Peter… so I'm not… as good at those," Jasper admitted.

"What about the lying?" I asked.

"Peter was a horrible liar... He still is... Maria spent a lot of time… with us… teaching us… how to lie… so that Peter… wouldn't give away… what we had been up to… when we went back home."

Jasper's story seemed highly implausible, but I did not think that he was lying to me now, and I knew something was going on, so I decided that this must be what he really thought had happened. How much of it was the truth and how much Maria had made up, I could not be certain, but her teaching him to lie, wrestle, and kill would explain his strange behavior today. Where else would he have learned all of that? But there was just one thing that did not make sense to me.

"Jasper, why did your grandparents send you away when you said Maria wanted you to stay with them?" I asked. I knew Esme's side of the story, but her version of events differed so drastically from Jasper's that I had to ask.

"I was really upset… after my dad died… Maria left… out the window… just as the cops… showed up… leaving me all alone... I tried to… tell Peter… what had happened… but he told me… to keep quiet… and he didn't understand… With no one to turn to… my emotions… started seeping out," he explained like this made perfect sense to him.

"Your emotions seeped out?" I asked, unsure what he was talking about.

"My emotions leak," he said reaching out his hand to touch me.

When Jasper's skin made contact with my own, I felt happiness and joy flow through me. But as quickly as it came, it was replaced by fear and sadness. "Are you doing that?" I asked as the emotions changed again and I felt both grief and contentment.

"Yes," he answered simply.

"How?" I asked in disbelief.

"Like Maria said… I'm special," he explained with a shrug.

"Is this why you don't like to talk in therapy?" I asked.

"Yes… She keeps asking me… how I feel… and it's so _frustrating_ to me not to just show her how I feel. But… Maria said that I have to keep it a secret… And Dr. Flynn always wants me to talk about what happened… but Maria said… that I need to keep that a secret too," he explained.

"Well I will keep your secret. We don't need to tell Esme: it will just upset her," I said knowing that this was the truth. This story made no sense and there was nothing I could do about it, no matter how much I believed my son. The best thing for it was to leave it alone and see how it played out. If Maria came back, then we would run, as a family. But until then, what could we do?

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><p>Author's note: Jasper finally told Carlisle what is really going on, but he does not believe him. So what do you think? Please review!<p> 


	22. Chapter 21

Russell's POV:

In September, the Cullens and I went to court and I asked the judge to let Esme and Carlisle adopt me. The judge agreed, so I officially became Russell Hale Cullen and started calling Esme and Carlisle Mom and Dad.

I was totally over the being a girl thing and really happy to be a boy again. And I wanted to take my new family's last name, so I fully expected the judge to make my name Russell Cullen. But Carlisle and Esme surprised me by including the middle name Hale; I had never had a middle name before.

"We want you to keep the name Hale, as a reminder of who you are Russell and where you came from. Nothing about you being a Hale or Carol's son could ever make us ashamed of you. Carlisle and I will love you no matter what," Esme told me.

So now I was the third Cullen boy and Jasper, Edward and I really got to be brothers. We did everything together, well except for school: I was still homeschooled and halfway through second grade, while Jasper and Edward went to public school and were just starting third and fifth grade. But the three of us were still together all of the time and did everything together, from karate classes on the weekend, to climbing into our parents' bed at night, to wrestling during the day. The three of us really liked to dress up and role play together. And we even all still had to see Dr. Flynn together, although as time progressed our sessions became less and less frequent.

Jasper and Edward already had karate classes every Saturday, so now that my cast was off, Mom and Dad signed me up too. Dad said he wanted me to learn to defend myself. He said that because I was intersexed, some people out there would want to hurt me, just like that bad man from the movie theater. So I would have to make an effort to hide what I really was in public, as well as learn to defend myself, just in case.

But life with the Cullens and my brothers was not all karate classes and games. Sometimes Jasper would have nightmares that he was watching his parents die again. Or Edward would have nightmares that he was in the hospital dying again. Or I would have nightmares that my old mom had come back for me and I had to take care of five new baby sisters while my mom worked the streets.

When any of us had a nightmare, we would all hear the screaming or crying, because we all kept our bedroom doors open at night, and our three bedrooms were all next to each other on the second floor. One night last week Edward had been the one having a nightmare. By the time I got to his room, he was hugging his stuffed monkey and crying, so I climbed in on the other side and asked, "Is it being sick in the hospital again Tink?"

Edward was always getting sick and occasionally having to stay in the hospital for a few days so that Dad could make sure he was okay. But three times in the past Edward had gotten really sick and had to stay for more than a week. And once, when his parents had died, he had gotten so sick that he almost died himself. So I could understand why he would have nightmares about the place. After all, he had gone in sick with two parents and left an orphan after almost dying himself.

"Yeah," Edward admitted in between sobs.

"Let's go to Mom and Dad's room," I suggested.

Edward grabbed his stuffed monkey and we walked down the hall, to crawl into bed with our parents. But as I approached the room, I distinctly made out an all too familiar sound. It was a sound I had heard many times when with my old mom; when Lily, Daisy, and I were locked in the bathroom while my old mom was with a John. So I stopped short and pulled Edward back saying, "Stop, we can't go in there right now. Let's go back to your room."

"Why?"

"They're doing grown-up things that are really gross and we don't want to see," I tried to explain.

I had seen some of the details with my old mom, like when I saw a man climb on top of her when they were both naked, but I did not know any words for what my mom had been doing other than "working" and "hooking." I was pretty sure it was called something else when no one got paid. I knew that when no one got paid and one person got hurt it was called rape. But what it was called when no one got paid or hurt, I did not know.

"But it's always okay to go in there," Edward protested.

He was right: as far as I was aware, it was always okay to go to Mom and Dad, day or night, with our problems. But with those noises, I knew that it was not a good time and we should wait. It was engrained in me, from a very young age, not to bother adults making that noise. And even if this was the Cullens, who were good parents and never minded anything, I still could not let my brother walk in on that.

"What's going on?" Jasper asked, coming out of his room to join our discussion in the hallway.

"Tink had a nightmare and wants to go into Mom and Dad's room, but Mom and Dad are already doing grown-up stuff in there," I explained to Jasper and then we heard my new mom scream.

"Is Uncle Carlisle killing her?" Jasper asked.

"Daddy would never kill Mommy!" Edward defended. "But Mommy must be hurt and Daddy is being a doctor and trying to fix her."

"They aren't hurt or dying you guys. They're okay, that's just what grown-ups do at night. Come on, let's go downstairs," I pleaded with my brothers.

But before I could convince my brothers to leave my new parents alone, the door to their bedroom opened and Dad came out wearing a robe. "Oh, hi Dad. I was just trying to get Jazz and Tink to go downstairs with me so that we wouldn't disturb you and Mom," I explained as I pulled on my brothers, urging them to go with me.

"What's wrong Tink?" Dad asked.

"You and Mommy were crying and I thought Mommy was hurt. I wanted to check on her, but Rus stopped me," Edward replied in between sobs.

"He had a nightmare and we were going to your room. When we got down the hall, I heard what you were doing and tried to get him to go back to his room with me. But he wouldn't listen and we woke Jazz up too," I explained.

"Come here Tink," Dad said pulling him up into his arms. "Rus was right: your aunt and I were not hurt. Let's go downstairs and talk."

Edward nodded, so the four of us went down and sat in the living room. A moment later, Mom came down, also wearing a robe, and sat next to Dad.

"If you weren't hurt, then why were you crying?" Edward asked, breaking the silence.

Mom and Dad exchanged looks, before Dad spoke, "You boys are getting older and you will find out eventually. And it seems you already know, Russell. We're going to tell you what we were doing, but only because we want you to hear about this at home first. We were having sex, which is something that grown-ups do when they love each other, if they have a condom."

So sex was the other word for it. And although I now knew the word, I could not for the life of me figure out why two people would want to do it if neither of them were being paid; it could not possibly be to play with the condoms. Condoms are really nasty slimy balloons that my old mom always told us not to touch or play with, especially if they were in the trashcan. They make horrible water balloons, because they are too long and do not pop when you throw them.

But before I figured out the mystery, Mom spoke and answered my unspoken question, "Boys, your dad and I are trying to make a baby."

"A baby?" Jasper asked.

"What! Why would you want one of those!" Edward exclaimed.

"I don't have to stop school to take care of her, do I?" I asked.

"No, of course not Russell. If we have more children, you three will still only be responsible for yourselves. You'll still be our son, not our nanny Rus," Mom answered me.

"A baby is a young human before they grow up and turn into a child," Dad answered Jasper. "And Tink, your mother and I like children. You three are great, and we wouldn't trade any of you for the whole world, but we just wanted one more. We've never had a baby, so we thought we would try it."

"Oh," Jasper replied calmly.

"Does making a baby hurt?" Edward asked confused and wondering why Mom had been screaming.

"Not the first part, which we were just doing. But, the end hurts a lot for the mom," Dad answered.

"So why were you crying?" Jasper asked this time.

"We weren't crying. We were making that noise because it felt good," Mom answered.

"You cry because it felt good?" Edward asked for clarification.

"Yes," Dad answered.

"Oh," Jasper and Edward replied simultaneously.

There was a pause for a moment while both Jasper and Edward thought about what they had just been told. I already knew most of it, so I just had one question. "How are babies made?" I asked.

Dad looked again to Mom, who nodded, before he explained it to us. His answer was full of words like "egg" and "sperm" and bigger words that I did not understand like "penetration" and fertilization". The only word I was really sure about was egg, which was a type of food we kept in the kitchen. I was wondering how all this tied in with sex in the bedroom, so I asked, "And you do that in your bed?" I was picturing them naked with a mixing bowl making scrambled eggs in bed.

"Yes," Esme answered.

"Ew!" Jasper and Edward both screamed and ran off upstairs.

Jasper and Edward must have understood Dad's explanation: there was no other possible reason to explain their behavior. And I did not want to stay there by myself and ask for clarification and admit that I was the only one who did not understand, because I did not want my new parents to think that I was stupid. So instead I said, "Well, let me know when I can expect the new sister. I'm going back to bed," before following my brothers upstairs.

After that, none of us wanted to go to Mom and Dad's room, ever. We avoided it at all cost, not just at night when we had nightmares, but also during the day. All three of us stayed in our own rooms when we had a nightmare, although I did sometimes go comfort my brothers when I woke up and found them crying. But I always made sure to go back to my own bed after my brothers went back to sleep.

And we started fighting about who had to do chores that involved going into Mom and Dad's room. Three days ago Mom asked us to go get the wrapping paper from her bed so that she could wrap Dad's birthday present, so we played rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock, and Edward lost. So Edward had to go into their bedroom and retrieve the wrapping paper from the dreaded bed. Then Jasper and I pretended that Edward had cooties for the rest of the day, but when Dad got home, we had to stop and behave for his birthday.

So I am sure that you can see why I really loved my new family and having brothers. But no matter how great the Cullens were, I still missed my sisters. Going back to life with my old mom regularly featured in my nightmares, but during the day, I still looked back on my happy times with her. I often found myself wondering how my old mom was or wishing to see Daisy and Lily again.

During the three months that I had my cast on, I got to talk to Lily and Daisy once a week. Esme called their foster parents every Sunday morning. But I only got to see them once during that entire three month period: about a month after I went to live with the Cullens, Lily and Daisy's foster mother brought them over to our house to play with me.

Daisy and Lily's foster mother's name was Mrs. Markes and Lily said that they lived in Beaver and had three boys. One of the boys was older than me, one was my age, and the youngest was in between Lily and Daisy's ages. Lily told me that they were really nice to them and that she was really happy there. She said her new mom really wanted a daughter, when all she had were boys, so she and Daisy got a lot of attention.

Daisy and Lily looked really happy when I saw them and my new mom said that she thought that my sisters were in good hands with the Markeses. She even said that she would take me over to see my sisters once a month just as soon as my leg healed. So a week after I got my cast of and just days before my hernia operation, my mom took me up to Beaver to the Markes' house and I got to see my sisters again.

I did not have any problem telling my mom that I wanted to see my sisters, but I was afraid of admitting that I wanted to see my old mom too, because I did not want to hurt my new mom's feelings. I worried that she would think I did not love her if I still wanted my old mom too. And the thought of seeing her was scary, because she might take me away from my new family if she saw me. Sure she was in jail now, but there was no telling how long that would last and I did not want to go back to living in motels, moving all of the time, and hiding from the cops.

Dad had brought me a note from her saying that it was okay that I live with the Cullens and she wanted me to be happy, but a note and hearing it straight from her mouth were two totally different things. It would give me closure to see her again and to actually hear her and see the words come out of her mouth. Dr. Flynn and I talked about this all of the time in therapy, and she always used the word closure.

I was not sure if Dad knew that this was what I was thinking or if he had some other reason for doing it, but this morning he came into my room and woke me up saying, "Wake up Rus! I have a surprise for you: get dressed because we are going down to the jail to see your other mom, Carol."

My adoption had been official for just over a week now, so legally Esme was my mother, not Carol, and when I wrote my name for the judge, I gave up any hope of seeing my old mom again. But now it seemed I had given up hope too soon and I felt my face lighting up in a smile and I let out a little squeal of joy as I jumped into Dad's arms and hugged him. "Enough hugging, we need to get going or we're going to miss visiting time," he said smiling back at me and hugging me back.

No one else was awake yet, but Dad was not kidding when he said we had to get going or we would miss it. The car ride to the jail is Seattle, were my mom was living, took forever. Then we had to wait in a really long line to get searched, just to enter the jail. Then there was another line and another and another and nothing to do but practice reading with dad, because he had brought two of my school books with us.

When I finally got to see my old mom, she was behind a sheet of clear plastic, sitting at a desk, and wearing an orange jumpsuit. There was one chair on my side and Dad motioned for me to sit in it, while he picked up a phone. It was one of those really old phones with a cord, like you see in really old movies. Mom picked up the phone on her side and I could see her talking to my dad, but I could not hear her. And then Dad handed me the phone and I finally got to speak with my mom.

"How are you doing Russell?" my old mom asked me as soon as I picked up the phone.

I told her all about my new life with the Cullens and school and Jasper and Edward. "I'm really happy there," I said.

Her face lit up with a smile and she said, "I'm really glad you're happy. That's what I want for you and I was so worried in here thinking that you might not be."

"And Lily and Daisy are happy too. I saw them and I talked to them all of the time. They're both doing really good in school. Daisy learned her alphabet and numbers in preschool and everything," I told her.

"That's wonderful!" Mom exclaimed, placing her hand on the glass.

I put my hand on the glass too, and lined my fingers up with hers, but there was one question I really wanted to ask my mother. "Why didn't you fight for us?" I asked, looking down and trying not to let on how important this question was to me. I told myself I was not going to cry. "The social worker said that you approved my adoption by the Cullens."

"I thought that's what you wanted? You approved it too Russell. Didn't you want to live with them?" she asked me.

"I did. I just hoped you loved me enough to fight for me."

"I do love you Rus. And I would have fought tooth and nail to get out of here and get you back. Out of all my children, you stayed with me the longest: Rosalie was eight when they were taken from me, so you were with me a whole year longer. I know that I never fought for any of the others, but I had never had any of them that long when they were taken away. Well, except for Rosalie, Jasmine, and Holly.

"I was going to fight for those three, but when I got out and found you and Lily, I knew that if I tried to get them back, I would probably lose you and Lily in the process. I was going to fight for you though, because you were my only boy and I don't think I'll ever get another one of those. But then Dr. Cullen came in here and asked me if he could have you."

"He told me he was coming when I was in the hospital," I replied.

"He came then too, to ask if you could live with him. But then he came back and asked if he could adopt you. He said he and his wife loved you and really wanted you."

"He did?"

"Yes. And he told me about your medical problems and I thought living with a doctor would be best for you. He said that your jelly beans coming down will probably cause another hernia and you'll probably need another surgery. I don't want you to be living with me and in pain because I can't take you to the doctor. I didn't even know you needed the first surgery!"

"It didn't hurt Mom; not until he pressed on it and showed me," I replied, trying to make her feel better.

"Well he fixed it, which is all that matters. And he showed me pictures of you in your new bedroom with all of the cars: you looked so happy. I figured he was rich from the way he had you dressed and the size of that room. Plus he's a doctor."

"Yeah, he is. But he's really nice and he takes good care of me," I replied.

I was running out of things to tell my mother and was about to wrap up the conversation when Dad asked for the phone. "I brought some pictures I thought you might like to have," Dad said, pulling out a stack of photos from the yellow folder. He had exchanged my school books for the yellow folder while I had been talking. Now my books were back in his briefcase purse thing that he had been carrying on his shoulder this whole time. I did not know what the pictures were of, but I knew my new mom had packed juice boxes and crackers in the bag and I was wondering if there were any crackers left, or if I had eaten them all while we waited in that really long line. I was hungry again.

I found one last bag of Cheez-its, so I quickly opened them up and popped the first one in my mouth before I looked at the pictures Dad was showing my old mom. The first few I recognized from when he and Mom had taken me and my brothers to get our picture taken. After that there were a few snap shots of Lily and Daisy and me from our last visit to the Markes'. But the eight by tens he pulled out after that were of pretty blond children I did not recognize.

"This one here is a boy named Ian from Tampa Florida. He has PAIS, which stands for Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. That's the same intersexed condition that Russell has. He was abandoned with a note with the name 'Iris' on it. He had no outward genitalia at birth, but the file clearly states that he has an undescended set of testicles," I heard Dad say into the phone.

"This next one is Jonquil from Alabama. He's also a boy with PAIS and undescended testicles, just like Russell, but he has a macroclit in place of a penis. And then I found Heather here in New York with CAIS, which is a more severe form of the disorder. They thought that she was a girl until three years ago. Her testicles came down and she changed her name to Heath.

"I was looking for other cases of children with the same condition as Russell. I was trying to determine which gene is affected, when I came across these three boys that I thought might belong to you. Russell told me the names Iris and Jonquil, so I was pretty sure that they were yours. But I'm only guessing with Heather: he just looks so much like Russell that I was sure he was yours," Carlisle continued as my mother nodded.

"I thought you should know what your sons have: I just got confirmation that this is a mutation in the androgen receptor, which is an X-linked gene. The blood sample you provided me last time showed that you have two copies of this mutation, which explains why all of your sons have the disorder. Having two copies of the same mutation is extremely unlikely, but in this case it's because of the inbreeding in your family history: as first cousins, your parents should never have been allowed to marry.

"So any sons you have in the future, as well as half of your grandsons from your daughters, will have the same condition. I've already tracked down all of your other children that I could find and informed them. If you have any relatives that I don't know about, you should tell them about the condition and let them know that there is a chance they have it or are carriers of it. It is treatable with testosterone shots and I fully expect Russell's testicles to descend at puberty."

After Dad finished, he handed me back the phone. "Did you hear that Russell? Dr. Cullen said you're going to get jelly beans when you grow up!" my mom exclaimed at the other end of the line.

"I know: he told me. I'm really excited!"

"Now my time to talk is almost up. The guard's gonna come get me soon. I want you to be good for the Cullens and work hard in school. I know I never let you go to school much, but you're really smart, so I know you'll catch up. And I want you to be happy Russell. I'm not going to get out of here for a long time, so you'll be all grown up before I can find you again," my mom said placing her hand to the glass, like before.

"How much time did you get mom?" I asked with tears in my eyes.

"I got a year for drunk driving and they let me off for the guy in my trunk. But they're sending me to Florida, Alabama, and Oklahoma to face other charges. Florida wants me for abandoning Iris, or Ian. Alabama wants me for Jonquil. I'll probably get a year or more from each. Oklahoma wants me from a drug bust a long time ago. I used a different name back then, but they finally found me this time. I was dealing drugs and I lied about my name and fled the State. My attorney said that Oklahoma's really mad at me for that and wants to throw the book at me," Mom replied.

"Come find me when you get out. I love you Mom," I said as I heard a buzzer sound.

"I have to go Russell. I'll always love you and your sisters. Tell them that for me," she said before putting the phone down and lining up to go back to her cell.  
>"Come on son, we have to go now," Dad said as a single tear fell from my eye.<p>

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Was anyone wondering how Carol had all those kids if she used condoms? Well she did not use condoms all of the time and she had a certain thing for blond haired blue eyed men, thus explaining where all of the blond kids came from. Several of them even have the same father.<p>

Russell is now officially a Cullen! Yay! Up next we will go back to Carlisle and Esme and their whole trying to have a baby thing. What do you think? Is there a little Cullen on the way?


	23. Chapter 22

Carlisle's POV:

The day Russell's adoption was finalized was one of the greatest days of my life, right up there with the day I married Esme and the dates Jasper and Edward's adoptions were finalized. Esme and I were both ecstatic about the new addition to our family, although we were still hoping for one more addition. By the time Russell's adoption was finalized, Esme and I had been trying for a baby for eleven months.

I know they say to wait a full twelve months before checking with your doctor regarding possible fertility problems, but by the time Esme and I reached the eleven month mark, I gave in and had my sperm count tested. A week later Esme and I had our reason why we had been unable to conceive: my sperm count was not just low, but my sperm morphology was abnormal too.

But even after this news, I was still rather hopeful about our prospects of conceiving, because Esme and I still had a few options left. We could try a cervical cap, which would deliver sperm directly to the cervix or _in vitro_ fertilization, which would deliver sperm directly to the oocyte. Or, if my sperm quality was still too poor, I could have a biopsy and have sperm removed directly from my testicles to use _in vitro_. And if that still did not work, we could always just get a sperm donor.

Esme and I tried the cervical cap for one month before deciding to give _in vitro_ a go. The first bit of good news we had was when the doctors announced that they had been successful in isolating eggs from Esme, and the eggs appeared to be of high quality. But this was the last piece of good news on the subject we ever received: only two weeks later our doctor revealed that after fertilization with my sperm, not one of the eggs proceeded to develop into a blastocyst.

At first we assumed that the problem was my low sperm quality, so we switched to a donor and tried again. But when every embryo again spontaneously aborted before the blastocyst stage, our doctors recommended a round of genetic testing for Esme. When the test results came back, it was determined that Esme's problem was indeed genetic as she was lacking one of the many maternally expressed oocyte proteins.

Zygotes do not start protein synthesis right away, so for the first several cell divisions they rely solely upon already synthesized proteins. These proteins are synthesized in the egg using the mother's DNA, so if a woman cannot make one of them, she is fine because she received functional protein from her own mother. But, all of her eggs lack the crucial protein, and are thus incapable of forming blastocysts.

When Esme and I learned that we were both infertile we were devastated. If it was just one of us, we could get a donor. But with both of us affected, we decided that we did not want to continue with _in vitro_, because it would be tantamount to adopting. And there were plenty of perfectly fine children already in existence that needed adopting. We had already found three wonderful children to take into our home; why could we not find one more?

Esme and I decided to meet with a social worker to find another child for us. But we did not just want any child: we had three intersexed children at home, and we specifically wanted another intersexed child. So right after the holidays, we met with our worker, Ms. Alvar Verhoeven and told her of our wishes. She said that our request was unusual and that she would be unlikely to be able to fulfill it, but she would look.

Esme and I went two months without hearing back from Ms. Verhoeven, but then one day in early March, she called and asked us to meet her. We agreed to meet at our house one morning during the week. We would have gone to her office, but someone had to stay home while Mrs. Barnes homeschooled Russell.

By this time, Russell had finished second grade and was just starting third grade. We were hoping that he would finish third grade by the end of the summer, in time to start fourth grade with Jasper in the fall. Then Russell would only be two grades behind. With completing two grades a year, he should be caught up by eighth grade. And since he had to be homeschooled anyway, Esme and I decided that we would start homeschooling Jasper next year as well. Jasper was already smart enough to skip two grades and I did not like that he was not being challenged at school, so we would put him in the accelerated program with Russell and let them both go back to public school in another two years.

But back to our meeting with Ms. Verhoeven: this morning, I dropped Edward and Jasper off at school as usual before returning home for the meeting. Esme had already set Russell up with Mrs. Barnes in his room, so we were waiting in the living room for Ms. Verhoeven. We were so anxious about our meeting that it seemed like time was passing unusually slowly. Esme was a ball of nerves and kept fidgeting with her skirt.

"What if she doesn't like our family and doesn't let us have another child?" Esme worried while we waited.

"We're already approved. All that matters now is finding the right child," I assured her with a peck to the cheek. "We want one that will be a perfect fit for our family."

She looked like she was about to protest, but then we heard the knock on the door and went to answer it. "Ms. Verhoeven, it's so nice to see you again," Esme greeted shaking her hand.

Esme stepped aside and let our guest in, before I shook her hand and greeted her as well. We sat down at the dining room table and she pulled out our file from her briefcase and opened it. I knew it was our file, because a picture of our family was paper-clipped on top of the first sheet.

"I've been searching all of the case files in the area for the perfect child for you, and I've got one here that meets your criteria." She indicated the single file. "But, I've got a few more that I hoped you'd look at if you don't choose the first. Although, I was only able to find one intersexed child in the State, there are many sick children in this area who'd greatly benefit from being adopted by a doctor," she said pulling out a small stack and laying it on our table.

"You found an intersexed orphan?" I asked excitedly.

"Well, he's not an orphan, but he also wasn't taken away from his parents like your," here she looked down at our open file before continuing, "Russell. Both parents willingly placed him up for adoption when they realized that they were out of their league with his medical problems."

"That's horrible! Parents just gave up on their sick child?" Esme asked concerned.

"Just how bad are these medical problems?" I asked, thinking that they must have been severe if they had caused the parents to give up their rights. Medical problems were not a deal breaker, but if he required too much treatment, we might not be able to juggle his needs into our busy schedules. We already had Edward's medical problems to think of. And even if Jasper and Russell were fine now, they still had Guevedoche and PAIS, respectively; it was likely that both of them would have further complications with their conditions at some point down the road.

"They aren't severe at all. The child, Mario, has Guevedoche, like your son," here she paused again to look at our file, "Jasper. That's why Mario's file jumped out at me as the perfect match for you. Also, he has schizophrenic epilepsy, but his file says that it's very mild and barely affects his everyday life. His parents couldn't handle the Guevedoche, epilepsy, and homosexually, so they gave him up. He hasn't been in a foster home or orphanage: he's in a children's psychiatric ward in Seattle."

"Oh, the poor boy! He must be scared to death all alone in the hospital!" Esme exclaimed.

"And how can you be sure an eight year old is gay?" I asked. "It's too soon to tell." We had certain suspicions regarding Edward, but he had not shown an interest either way yet.

"Mario has made it very clear that he plans on marrying a man when he grows up. He's very…" she paused to find the right word, "insistent. He's extremely strong willed and persistent until he gets his way. He's always been like that and the bio parents couldn't control him. He's not a bad child, really, he just has a certain set of ideas regarding how things are and either one accepts that or he doesn't have room for you in his life. It's a bit unusual for such a young child, but, it is what it is."

"Can I see his medical file?" I asked. I wanted a detailed report on his medical condition so I could determine just how much care the child was likely to need. He sounded like he would need a lot from her description.

"Sure, here you go Dr. Cullen," Ms. Verhoeven said handing me a file before turning to speak with Esme. "Mrs. Cullen, this boy fits your criteria perfectly and your family meets his. He's an eight year old intersexed boy. He should have no problems fitting in with your other three boys."

"What's his full name?" Esme asked as I looked at the file.

"Mario Alice Brandon. The doctors weren't sure of the gender when he was born and thought he looked more female, so the parents called him Alice. When the karyotyping came back male, the parents changed his name to Mario. His mother was from the Dominican Republic and his father from Mississippi. They moved to Seattle for work after graduating from Harvard University with degrees in Business. They run a fashion design company in the city and seem to be nice loving people."

While Ms. Verhoeven spoke, I read. The file stated that the boy was born with a severe hernia, a micropenis, and a perineal hypospadias that was not fully exposed. Shortly after birth, two surgeries were performed: one to repair the hernia, the other a cutback vaginoplasty to expose the urethra, in order to allow the urine a proper means of egress from the body. During the surgery, a fully formed vaginal canal had also been uncovered, but would likely need further reconstructive surgery later.

The micropenis and hypospadias I had seen before, in Edward, although this was the most severe type of hypospadias. Edward had the mildest form of the condition. Mario's hypospadias was so severe that he would have to pee sitting down. And the vagina and hernia I had seen in Russell, while the undescended testes I had seen in both Jasper and Russell, so although this was a new mix of symptoms and was more severe than my first three children, none of these things were new to me.

I was thinking that I would be fine handling Mario's problems associated with the Guevedoche, as I continued to read his file. He had already been given testosterone shots shortly after birth, but those had not had the desired effect. Since Guevedoche was an inability to convert testosterone into dihydrotestosterone, and his dihydrotestosterone levels were low, they had then tried giving him dihydrotestosterone shots. The micropenis had enlarged quite a bit after the first few months of shots, indicating that these new hormone injections were working. There was a recommendation in the file that these shots be reinstated once the child starts puberty and potentially continue for the rest of his life, depending on his dihydrotestosterone levels.

But even with the hormone shots, Mario did not look much like a little boy, and it seemed that his doctors and parents had considered other, surgical, options. They were planning an operation to make his genitals look more normal by creating a scrotum and moving the testes. This surgery had actually been scheduled. But apparently, when they had explained it to a four year old Mario, he had freaked out and insisted that he did not want it. He wanted to be left the way he was, and had even gone to extreme measures, especially for such a young child, to avoid the surgery. A date had been set, and when it came, Mario was nowhere to be found. The little boy just ran away in the middle of the night without anyone knowing. They found him a week later in the forest living off of wild berries. Good thing it had been during the summer or he might have frozen to death.

The parents had rescheduled the surgery, and purposely not informed Mario, so that they could take him in while sleeping, and have him wake up with the surgery already complete. But Mario caught on and threw a major tantrum the night before, flat out refusing to go to sleep. He had even become violent, which had never happened before. Finally, after being up all night with an uncontrollable four year old, his parents tried to get him into the car to go to the hospital for the surgery. But Mario had gotten free of his mother's grip and ran. He made it upstairs and into a crawl space before his parents caught up to him. By the time they got him out, they had missed the surgery again.

And as soon as they had scheduled Mario for surgery a third time, he had instinctively known, and ran right back into the crawl space and refused to come out. Mario stayed in there for days without food, water, or a toilet. The parents eventually had to call the fire department to come get him. The firemen knocked a hole in the wall and pulled the child out and that was when the parents brought him to the mental institution.

From all of this, I gathered that Mario was stuck here partly because he had so vehemently refused the operation; that must be what Ms. Verhoeven meant when she said he was strong willed. His parents were probably fine with the Guevedoche just as long as there was something that they could do about it. When Mario took their surgical options away, his parents could not cope and sent him away. His mental illness was probably seen, by his parents, as a fortuitous coincidence that allowed them to lock their son away and explain his oddly adamant refusal of surgery. And since he had not changed his mind and had not consented to the surgery, he had been stuck here ever since.

I also got the distinct impression that Mario did not want a set of balls. He had been willing to come here to the institution to be dropped off indefinitely, but had refused the genital surgery. The only treatment he had was the administration of the hormone shots and the initial surgery, but he had been a baby for those. This child clearly wished to leave what was between his legs the way it was. And what was there appeared almost completely feminine, even more so than my Russell. On the outside, Mario's micropenis was the only indicator that he was a boy at all.

Since the intersexed disorder was not a problem for me, I quickly moved on to the psychiatric evaluation. Mario had epileptic seizures in which he saw visions. The file came complete with a drawing by the child of one of his visions. The note on the side of the drawing said that most of his visions seemed to be of this blond haired boy. I dropped the file to the table, picked up the picture, and stared at it while my jaw dropped.

"What is it Carlisle?" Esme asked.

"Jasper," I said showing her the picture.

"What's a drawing of Jasper doing in Mario's file?" she asked perplexed.

"This picture was drawn by Mario. The file says that this is what he sees during his seizures. It's even labeled 'Jasper,'" I replied.

"What?" Ms. Verhoeven asked confused.

"This Mario seems to see our Jasper while he's seizing. Maybe they've met before. Esme, how old would you say Jazz is in this drawing?" I asked.

"Oh, he had his hair like that when he was five, back when he first came to live with me. Maybe the two boys met before? Maybe they went to the same doctor?" Esme asked.

"It's possible. After all, how many little boys with Guevedoche live in the area? They're within a year of age and Seattle is close by," I reasoned.

"Well, I think this's a sign that we should take him. Ms. Verhoeven, do you have a picture of Mario?" Esme asked.

"Um… Yes, well that does make sense that the boys met at a doctor's appointment. They're probably the only two boys with the condition in the State," Ms. Verhoeven replied without answering the question.

"This file only contains pictures of his genital surgery. Do you have a snapshot of his face we could see?" I persisted.

"Well, yes, about that. I do have a picture, but I have to warn you: I told you he's gay, right?"

"Yes," Esme answered, not understanding what she was getting at.

"Well Mario likes to be called by his middle name, Alice," Ms. Verhoeven stated pulling out the eight-by-ten and showing us.

The picture showed an adorable little girl with jet black hair in a crew cut. She had a pink ribbon tied in a bow on top her head, and a matching pink dress. Her sparkling dark brown eyes contrasted stunningly against her pale white skin.

"She's gorgeous," Esme muttered. "But Mario?"

"Mario likes to be called Alice and dress in pink," Ms. Verhoeven clarified.

"Oh, Mario's like Russell," I supplied.

"Our Russell went through a stage when he wanted to be called Rosalie and dressed like a girl. But then he decided to switch back to the male gender identity. It would be nice to have another female in the house again," Esme replied.

"The gender confusion's one of the reasons no one will take him: he's been in the system for three years without a single placement. The other foster parents're always too confused over his gender to know what to do with him. That combined with the seizures, and no one will even consider taking him," Ms. Verhoeven replied.

"But Alice has Guevedoche: they often appear completely feminine, even assuming female gender identities," I stated. "Actually, a female gender identity would fit better with the outward genitalia and his refusal of genital surgery. I've been reading up on Guevedoche patients ever since I met Jasper: they can range anywhere from appearing mostly male, like Jasper, to completely female. Alice seems to be closer to the female side of the spectrum. If it weren't for the micropenis and Y chromosome, she would be female," I replied.

"Well, I love her just the way she is. Can I keep this picture?" Esme asked Ms. Verhoeven.

"Yes. Does that mean I can set up a meeting?" Ms. Verhoeven asked.

Esme looked at me, and I nodded, before she answered, "Yes, when can we meet Alice?"

Author's Note: Sorry about all of the technical doctor-type stuff, but Carlisle really does spend all day doing that kind of thing. I started off with the mild conditions, so now I'm moving onto some of the more extreme conditions, and I just could not find a way to explain them without the scientific jargon. Wiki something if you want more details on what something is.

And I have a question for you all: what do you think a baby between a Quileute werewolf and a vampire would be like? Not a hybrid vampire like Nessie, but a regular one. Hot, cold, medium? Pale, tan, or sparkly? Drinks blood or eats food? Transforms into an animal and beating heart or not?


	24. Chapter 23

Carlisle's POV:

The next Saturday, Ms. Verhoeven arranged for us to meet Alice. So Esme and I dropped Jasper and Russell off at the neighbors to play with Henry for the day, before heading to Chief Swan's house to drop off Edward. Then we began the long drive to Seattle, where Alice was still being housed in the children's psychiatric ward. She had been there since she was four, a year before her parent's placed her up for adoption, and she had been there ever since.

When we arrived one of the nurses, Nurse Karnes, showed the three of us to Alice's room. She had her own room, which seemed like a normal little girl's room complete with teddy bear and pink wall paper, despite its location. Her walls were covered in drawings of flowers and she seemed like a perfectly normal, nice, polite, darling little girl. Esme and I fell in love instantly. And although she did not seize, we still saw a hint of her mental illness when she rushed up to us, jumped in my arms, and called me "Daddy," even though we had never met.

Little Alice then extricated herself from my arms, only to fling herself at Esme and exclaim, "Mommy." Esme, being a sucker and a bleeding heart, could not resist, and held little Alice in her arms. The newfound mother and daughter seemed content to sit like that forever, so we continued with our visit.

"I thought you said that she was eight?" I asked Ms. Verhoeven, noticing her short stature.

"She is: she's tiny for her age. Both her parents are short, maybe that explains it," she replied.

"She's more than tiny: she's the size of a six year-old," I responded, thinking that she might be a pigmy, dwarf, or have a growth disorder. In fact, the hormonal imbalance caused by her Guevedoche may be to blame: perhaps I need to take another look at her hormone levels and order a few more blood tests, maybe even start her on a biweekly dose of dihydrotestosterone.

"She's perfect," Esme added, and that settled it, for now. I would have to perform the tests later.

"Are you sure her parents will not want her back? How can anyone see that face and let her go?" I asked Ms. Verhoeven. Alice may have been tiny, but if she was ours, then we would love her forever.

"The parents were given six months to change their minds and come back for her. She's already been in here for four years, and she hasn't even had a visit; not even during the first year before they gave her up: they just couldn't deal with her problems. The last note in her file on the parents was that they were pregnant again. I guess they were trying to replace her with a normal child."

"That's awful! And poor Alice has been in here all alone for so long. Why hasn't she gone to a group home if no foster homes would take her?" Esme asked.

"None of the homes available were prepared to deal with an epileptic child," Ms. Verhoeven stated, shrugging her shoulders.

"Well, I would like to meet with her psychiatrist. If all goes well, when can we take her home?" I asked smiling at Esme, knowing that she was dying to take the child home with us as soon as possible.

"We could have temporary placement granted by this time next week," Ms. Verhoeven replied.

"Wonderful," Esme replied.

Once that was settled, Esme stayed with little Alice while I met with Alice's psychiatrist, Dr. Grant. At first there were no surprises, because I had already read her file. Dr. Grant insisted that the seizures were so mild that she was able to go about her normal life without interference. She rarely fell or hurt herself during a seizure. Instead, she typically grabbed a pencil and paper and drew: he had a stack of drawings of Jasper.

It was then, going through the sketches that the surprises arose. I was shocked in that these drawings were not of the five year-old Jasper featured in Alice's file, but of the nine year-old I had at home. How did she know what he looked like now if she had seen him at the age of five? I continued through the stack of drawings and found one featuring Jasper, Edward, Russell, Esme, and myself sitting on the couch in our living room.

"What's this one?" I asked.

"She says that they're her family and they'll come to take her home," Dr. Grant replied. "The father in the picture does look like you…"

"That is me. And that's my wife, and those are our three children, Jasper, Russell, and Edward."

"Alice's Jasper is real!"

"Yes," I answered pulling out a picture of him from my wallet and showing Dr. Grant. He took the photo and stared at it in stunned silence, so I continued. "When we saw the sketch of Jasper in her file, we thought that they must have met before. But how does she know what we all look like? I've never seen this child before today."

"Well, that _is_ a mystery. The child thinks that she is psychic: maybe she is. Can I keep this photo for her file?"

"Yes, you can keep it. I have others. Or maybe she saw us somewhere," I replied more reasonably.

"She hasn't been out of this hospital since she was four. And the only people that have been in to see her are her social worker, schoolteacher and the other doctors and nurses. I would suggest that maybe someone brought in a picture of your family, but she has been drawing the same people since she was a baby."

"Really, all of us?"

"No. At first just her Jasper, then she added the mom about three years ago. Shortly after that she added the dad and the red headed girl. And about a year ago she added the second blond boy. But, I don't think the girl is real, because Alice draws her as a boy sometimes."

"He is a boy: that's my son Edward. He likes to dress as a girl, just like Mario."

"We've decided to go with the female gender identity. Since she's intersexed, we thought it was better to let her choose."

"That's fine with me: all of our children are intersexed. Jasper even has Guevedoche, just like Alice."

"Well, they must've met before."

"That's what I thought. So do you see any issues with us adopting her and her fitting into our family?"

"Yes I do. If you're going to adopt her, and you have her Jasper, there's something you should see," he said sifting through the drawings, before pulling one out and handing it to me.

The picture showed a tall blond haired young man wearing a black tux and marrying a short black haired young woman wearing a white dress. "Is this Alice and Jasper?" I asked.

"Yes. Alice has always said that her Jasper is her husband, not her brother. She has always said that the red head is her sister, the other blond boy is her brother, and the adults are her parents. But, she says the adults are not the parents of her Jasper."

"Oh. Well, Jasper's my wife's biological nephew, so he calls us aunt and uncle, but we adopted him when his parents died. Edward and Russell, who are also adopted, aren't related to us, so they call us Mom and Dad. She seriously wants to marry Jasper?"

"Yes. In fact, I would be concerned about her sexually harassing him if they lived in the same house."

"Well, they're both intersexed, are close to the same age, and prefer opposite gender identities. Maybe when they grow up…"

"Dr. Cullen, I don't think you understand. Let me read you a quote from her file. I asked her what she and Jasper were doing in her vision. She answered, 'I'm sitting on his lap with our pee-pees touching.' Then I asked her what she would do if Jasper were here now. She answered, 'Jump in his arms and kiss him.' So do you see why I'm concerned about Jasper's well-being?" he asked me, looking up from the file. This must be why they were so certain Mario was gay: he or she did seem to prefer boys.

"Yes. Do you have a sketch from that vision?" I asked. After seeing the sketch of their wedding, I wondered if this vision might be of them older as well.

"Yes, this one," he replied pulling out another sketch.

In this sketch a young adult Alice was sitting on Jasper's lap, facing him, and kissing while wearing the same dress and tux as in the wedding sketch. "This doesn't seem so bad: it appears to be the honeymoon to go with the wedding and their clothes are still on. I'm sure she plans on doing that to him after they grow up. But don't worry: my wife and I'll keep an eye on the two of them and make sure that they're not sexually active," I stated before shaking his hand and excusing myself.

I went back to Alice's room, carrying a few of her sketches with me. "Esme, you're never going to believe this," I said handing her the sketch of our family. "She sees all of us."

"How?" was all Esme managed to ask. She seemed to be just as shocked as I was earlier.

"Maybe she's psychic. Who knows? But, I think we should keep her."

"I do too," Esme replied, still in shock.

"Alice, can I ask you something?" I asked.

"Sure Daddy," she replied.

"You know that your Jasper lives with us, don't you?"

"Yes. I can't wait to meet him!"

"Dr. Grant said that you want to kiss him. Is that true?"

"Yes. More than anything!" Her eyes lit up even brighter than normal when she said this.

"But he's just a little boy. If we take you home with us, you can't kiss him until you grow up."

"Okay Daddy. Can I hug him?" she asked looking up at me and fluttering her eye lashes.

"Yes. You can be like his sister."

With that Alice squealed and started bouncing off of the walls. Nurse Karnes went out into the hall and came back with something to sedate her, but I stopped the nurse, telling her that I was a doctor and could handle it. And after several minutes, Esme finally convinced Alice to sit back down in her lap, before asking me, "She wants to kiss Jasper?"

"She wants to marry him," I replied showing her the sketch of their wedding.

"Wow. I don't know what to say…" Esme trailed off.

"Well, if they're meant to be, then she'll be part of our family one way or another. I think we should bring Jasper here and introduce them."

As soon as the words left my mouth, Alice went to her desk in a trance like state and started drawing. "She's having a seizure," Nurse Karnes stated, going to the child's side.

Esme and I looked over as well and watched as Alice drew her and Jasper in her room hugging. "Tomorrow afternoon," Alice said in a far more subdued voice than she had been using. As she spoke, she wrote underneath the picture in very neat script.

"Her handwriting is so perfect. Does Alice go to school?" Esme asked Ms. Verhoeven, who was still standing on the other side of the room.

"Alice never leaves this building, but they have a teacher for the children here. Nurse Karnes, can you tell us more about Alice's schooling?" Ms. Verhoeven asked the nurse who was still at Alice's side.

"Yes. All of the children go down the hall to classes with Mrs. Lanner, but not Alice. Mrs. Lanner has some high functioning children that she teaches, but Alice was too advanced for that group, so we had to bring in a teacher just for her. Mr. Huxley comes in Monday through Friday for five hours and teaches her. He said that Alice is so intelligent that she'd be able to go to a normal school if she weren't in here. He has her doing third grade curriculum," Nurse Karnes told us proudly. Apparently being at grade level was an accomplishment in this place.

"Who mothers these children?" Esme asked Nurse Karnes.

"We nurses do: Nurse Sullivan's assigned to Alice. He's a middle aged gentleman who works the night shift. He's been with us forever and he even comes in early every evening just to sit and read with her," Nurse Karnes replied.

"That's very kind of him," Esme replied, and the nurse nodded.

It was very generous of this man to come in on his own time to make Alice's life more normal. I would have to find him and thank him for that; maybe even ask him to continue to visit her after the adoption. I would hate to take her away from the only person who has acted like a parental figure to her for the past four years.

"Might we arrange to meet with him too?" I asked. "Maybe this afternoon if he'll be in."

"I can check his schedule. He normally comes in early on weekends because Alice doesn't have school. But if not, I'm sure he'd be happy to come in early to meet with you: Alice is a favorite of his. Just let me page another nurse to stay with you folks and then I'll go check for you," she replied before using the intercom system to call for a replacement nurse.

While the nurse was otherwise engaged, I asked Ms. Verhoeven, "Can we come back tomorrow with our children, so that they can meet their new sister?"

Alice meeting our other three children would be crucial, because we needed to insure that they all meshed well together. We wanted another sibling for our current children to play with, not someone who would scare our children or sexually harass Jasper. So the whole adoption plan rested on this meeting and Jasper's reaction to meeting his stalker. I hoped he did not mind the fan club, because I really liked her.

"Well, I'll have to schedule it, but I'm sure that can be arranged.

Then Nurse Karnes returned and suggested that she and Alice show us around the facilities. We agreed, and after a quick tour, Alice led us to the small atrium in the middle of the facility that housed a little playground. She went to play, while Esme and I drilled the nurse on Alice's daily routine.

Alice's routine seemed balanced enough, with time devoted to school, play, and reading time with Nurse Sullivan. Despite the location and her medical problems, Alice was receiving a fairly normal upbringing. Well as normal as it was possible to make growing up in a mental institution. Alice even seemed well-adjusted, despite the fact that she was living in the future: in her world Esme and I were already her parents and she was already living her happily ever after with Jasper.

After an hour of talking while we watched Alice play, the door to the atrium opened and a tall pale gentleman let himself in, introducing himself, "Hello, I'm Nurse Sullivan. I believe you requested to meet with me this evening."

"Yes, I'm Dr. Carlisle Cullen and this is my wife Esme. It's a pleasure to meet you. We hear you've been the one raising little Alice. We're considering adopting her and wanted to know more about her," I replied extending my hand to shake.

When Nurse Sullivan and I shook, I noticed that his hand was firm and cold: it reminded me of my cousin Eleazar's handshake. I shook off the weird feeling and stepped aside so that Esme could greet him and shake hands too. But before the introductions were done, Alice noticed her nurse. She ran over to him, and jumped into his arms exclaiming, "See William! I told you my family was going to come for me today!"

"You sure did my sweet Alice. And they look just like your drawings too. Now why don't we go inside so you can draw me another?" he asked setting the child down and taking her hand.

Nurse Karnes excused herself and we all allowed Nurse Sullivan and Alice to lead the way back to Alice's room. She set right to work drawing a picture, while Nurse Sullivan sat down to chat with us.

"So what would you like to know? I'm sure you can already tell what a wonderful child my Alice is. Any family would be more than lucky to have her. Personally, I'm surprised that you're the first ones to come and try to take her from me," Nurse Sullivan revealed as he leaned over Alice's shoulder to watch her draw.

Esme proceeded to ask Alice's nurse a myriad of questions about her life; everything from her favorite color to her favorite book to what she likes for dinner. The answers were pink, Riding Freedom, and venison. Nurse Sullivan, or William as he liked to be called, did not seem to mind my wife's questions in the least, not even when she asked personal ones.

"I can tell you love your work and Alice here, but why did you decide to work here with sick children?" Esme asked.

"Well after my wife and daughter died awhile back, I was kind of lost with myself. So I decided to go back to school to get my nursing license and this place just seemed the perfect fit for me because I get to have children without all of the responsibility of adopting," he explained.

"That's so sad," Esme replied. "What happened to your wife and daughter? If you don't mind my asking."

"Car accident. It was a long time ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I didn't want to go on living without them, but what choice did I have?" he asked.

"Well I'm sure we have taken up enough of your time, so we should get going. Plus we still have a long drive ahead of us, but if you don't mind, we'd like you to continue to visit with Alice if she's placed in our home," I offered. It seemed that Alice was a big part of William's life, and vice versa, and I did not want to tear them apart.

"I would love too. Thank you so much Dr. Cullen! Did you hear that Alice?" he asked. "We still get to be together even once you get your real family,"

"I already knew we would. See, I drew a picture of all of us together," she replied holding up her drawing. Sure enough, our entire family was sitting in our living room with the addition of Alice and William. "We're going to be happy too. And you will marry Cousin Tanya."

"I doubt it sweetie. You know I don't date ever since my wife passed," he replied sadly.

"But that was a thousand years ago. And you look so happy together," she said pulling out another drawing. This one was of William and Tanya kissing. There was snow in the background and it looked like they could be outside Tanya's house in Denali, but I could not be certain.

"Children are so cute the way that they assume all adults must be ancient," William replied before picking up the sketch to examine more closely. "What color are Tanya's eyes my darling Alice?"

"Yellow. Yours will turn yellow too. You'll be so handsome with yellow eyes," Alice said hugging William.

"Well this might be a bit premature, but if we're approved to take Alice, my cousin Tanya will be coming down from Alaska for Thanksgiving. Would you care to join us? Maybe then we can help a few more of Alice's visions come true," I suggested.

"Well I can stop by, but let's not put ideas in Alice's young head. She already sees herself as practically omnificent," William joked.

By then it was already getting late and Esme and I still had a long drive ahead of us. So we said our farewells and left Alice with her nurse for the evening, knowing that we would be back the next day to see her again.

Author's Note: William lied about the car crash, but that way is easier for him than explaining that both his wife and daughter died of illnesses. He did not kill them, honest.


	25. Chapter 24

Carlisle's POV:

It was really late by the time we got home and the kids had all gone to sleep for the night, so we waited until morning before picking them up and driving to Seattle. This time we had left later and would need to return earlier, so we told the children that we would only be able to stay for two hours before we would have to turn around and head back home.

During the long car ride, Esme and I explained what was going on. They knew that we had gone to Seattle the day before to look at a child we were thinking about adopting, so now we told our children that we liked this new child and were planning on asking that Alice be placed in our home, if this meeting today went well. As we drove, the children wanted to know why she was in a hospital. Esme and I tried to answer the best we could, so we told them about her seizures and visions and that Alice was intersexed.

Jasper had been silent until he heard me say that Alice had Guevedoche, the same exact condition as himself. He then became very curious about how Alice could be a girl when she had the same thing as him. That was a hard concept to explain to a nine year-old, but as soon as I mentioned that Alice had a few more girl parts than he did, he replied, "Oh I get it: she's like Russell when he wanted to be a girl!" And once he understood, he returned to his silent reading, curiosity sated.

Edward and Russell were both excited about the prospects of having a new sister, so after that they each asked a few dozen questions about Alice. I had thought that Russell might feel a bit jealous that we were adopting again so soon. But when I asked him he replied, "Are you kidding? I can't wait to have a new sister! And I won't even have to change any diapers or anything. This sounds pretty sweet to me."

From that response, I got the feeling that Russell was still missing his biological sisters. Esme and I tried to keep the line of contact with the Markeses open; they were the family that had taken Russell's little sisters. We called once a week and drove Russell up to Beaver twice a month, but I guess that was just not enough and our son was still missing his old family.

But as excited as Russell and Edward were at the prospects of getting a new sister, Jasper seemed completely indifferent to the idea. Jasper had a slight phobia of crowds and strangers, so he was typically subdued when meeting new people, often refusing to speak or pull his head out of his book. He always brought a book along so he could use it as an excuse not to look at the new people.

With his phobia, Jasper did not seem the least bit excited as he quietly walked with us down the hall of the institution and into Alice's room, but that all changed the moment he laid eyes on her. They hit it off instantly, starting with a hug identical to the one in the sketch, which was pretty amazing because he _never_ hugged strangers; he rarely even hugged Esme. Then he sat down on her bed, and she crawled into his lap. There was none of Jasper's usual awkward silence and avoiding eye contact. Do not get me wrong, there was plenty of silence, but it was mutual and seemed to be filled with unspoken words and emotions. Alice had seemed so full of life and bubbly yesterday that I would not have imagined that she could seem so peaceful and content in Jasper's arms. And Jasper seemed to come alive with her in his arms. They were like two pieces of a puzzle finally reunited; apart one was too quiet and calm, while the other was too perky and hyperactive, but together they were perfect and completed each other.

Neither of the two could tear their eyes apart from the other, so Edward and Russell did not seem to know what to do. I caught Russell giving Edward a look, to which Edward shrugged and replied, "Let's check out her toys."

Russell and Edward went over to examine Alice's toys. She had a toy box that seemed to contain one of each kind of toy, each in pristine never been used condition. She had one of everything, for both boys and girls, from a Barbie and baby doll, to a matchbox car and Tonka truck, to a ball and a set of Legos. The ball still had the price sticker on it, the Legos were still in the case they came in, the truck still had plastic wrap, the matchbox car was still in the cardboard, the Barbie was still in the box, and the doll still had a tag on her. From the state of her toy box, it was fairly obvious that it was never used. Her desk, however, had the opposite look: it was littered with pads of sketch paper, crayons, colored pencils, drawing pencils, pencil sharpeners, chalk, and paint. The trashcan was full of crumpled up discarded drawings, and the shelf above the desk was crammed full of filled sketch pads. Obviously, this child spent all of her time on her artwork, instead of playing with toys.

Russell and Edward played with the toys for a few minutes, but they did not seem to know what to do with the unopened toys, so they quickly moved on to Alice's closet. They pulled out each intricately beaded dress, or pleated skirt, or fashionably cut blouse and examined them. While they were doing so, Ms. Verhoeven came over and explained that the clothes were the one thing Alice's biological parents sent her.

Alice's parents owned a fashion design business and had all of their latest styles regularly shipped over. The only contact they ever requested from their daughter was a biannual picture of her wearing whichever outfit was her favorite. They apparently could not handle anymore contact than that, and even though they had not had legal rights to their daughter for the past two and a half years, Ms. Verhoeven had continued to honor their one request and biannually sent them a single photo of Alice.

And as the photos had kept flowing back to her parents, the dresses had continued to arrive for little Alice. After hearing this story, Esme and I agreed that we would continue to send the biological parents two pictures per year. It was the least we could do for receiving such a precious child, and if the photos continued, maybe Alice's only link with her parents, the dresses, would continue too. Esme and I did not want to take the one thing Alice still had to remind her of where she came from away from her.

Edward and Russell spent an entire hour examining all of Alice's clothes. After that Esme and I broke up the happy couple on the bed long enough for the other children to get to meet Alice as well. So Jasper just shifted her in his arms and continued to hold her while she talked to Russell and Edward. Her normal bubbly personality emerged as she told our boys how she had seen that they would be her brothers and about some of the cool adventures they would have.

Alice even had a sketch for each of our boys. For Jasper, she gave him the one she had drawn yesterday of their first meeting today. For Edward she gave one of them sitting side by side playing the piano. And for Russell, she gave a sketch of all of us on a camping trip. In the background was a fight between a boy and a bear.

"That's your Emmett. He'll be your best friend if that bear doesn't get to him first," Alice explained.

Ever since that first camping trip two years ago when Edward had gotten the urinary tract infection, Esme and I have been averaging about two camping trips a year with the kids. We did not go while Russell was in the cast, but we went right after his adoption came through. And as it turned out, he was a bit of a natural. He picked up the riffle like a pro and was almost as good a shot as Jasper by the end of the trip. So now when we camp, Russell, Jasper and I go hunting, while Edward and Esme go hiking.

"So all I have to do is rescue him from the bear and then I can keep him?" Russell asked confused.

"Yep. And then Edward and I'll get another brother," Alice replied. She seemed so sure of the future, even though there was no way she could know that this bear boy even existed.

"Whatever," Russell replied shrugging and folding up the sketch. I had seen Alice's visions in action, but Russell had not, so he seemed to be a bit skeptical still. I wonder what he will do if he actually does meet his bear boy?

But after that, we had to go because it was a school night and we still had a long drive ahead of us. Both Jasper and Alice cried when they were separated, but we promised them that they would be back together soon. On the car ride home Esme asked Jasper if he had ever seen Alice before, obviously still curious about all of those sketches she had been drawing.

"No, but I can't get her out of my head now that I have," he replied.

"What about her keeps her in your thoughts, Jasper?" Esme asked.

"Just how it felt to be with her. Did you feel the hope coming off of her? It was so strong I could taste it," he replied.

"No, we couldn't feel it Jasper," I replied for Esme, as she was stunned into silence. Jasper had told me before of his strange affinity for emotions, but we were keeping it between the two of us, in an effort to minimize the effect of paranormal activity on our lives. But now that Alice was joining the family, it seemed we would have to admit that there really was something special about those two.

And as I was thinking about Jasper's emotions and Alice's visions, a connection formed in my head and I thought that maybe they really were meant for each other: maybe they were destined to be together because they were both special and had these extra abilities… Although I did believe Alice to be psychic by this point in time, I still did not believe in the divine, so I was fairly certain that there was a logical explanation for this all. Maybe they were just accessing untapped areas of their brains. Or maybe it had to do with the hormonal imbalance caused by the Guevedoche.

Either way, one question kept nagging at me. "Jasper, what were you two doing on the bed for that hour?"

"I was just memorizing her face: I never want to forget it. She's so perfect; please adopt her," he begged in awe.

Esme and I were already thinking along these same lines, so we told him as much. We called Ms. Verhoeven the next morning to see how that emergency placement was going. She informed us that a court date was set for Wednesday and she fully expected that we would be awarded temporary custody at such time. If that was the case, she would drop Alice off Wednesday evening.

Esme and I already had the guest bedroom downstairs set up from when Russell broke his leg, so we decided that Alice would stay there at first. We had an empty room upstairs for her, but we wanted Alice to help decorate her room. We did not want another disaster like last time when Esme picked out pink and lace for Russell, when he wanted cars and racetracks. So there really were not any preparations that needed to be made, leaving our family more free time to worry about the up-coming court date.

Ms. Verhoeven called Esme Wednesday a little before noon to tell us the good news: Alice's emergency placement was approved and she would be dropping Alice off around four. I was at work at the time, so Esme called to pass along the news. I really wanted to take off from work early that day and leave all of my duties to Dr. Smith, the other attending. But we were swamped with a logging accident, so I could not.

I probably should have stayed late and continued working that night, to help deal with the overflow, but as soon as my replacement showed up, I went home to my family. The five of them were home waiting for me to start dinner when I arrived: they looked like the picture perfect family sitting around that table, although, Jasper and Alice were holding hands. Children that age do not typically hold their siblings hands, but it seemed that those two could not get enough of each other.

After dinner we all went into the living room to watch television, and Jasper did something that I have never seen him do before: he crawled into Esme's lap. He used to crawl into my lap all of the time when he was younger, but he was getting to that age when children stop wanting affection from their parental figures, so it had been ages since the last time I had held him.

Russell and Edward used to climb into Esme's lap all of the time for that extra bit of maternal affection, but Jasper never did, always choosing my lap or to sit by himself and read. Esme and Jasper had never been close, so he never went to her for comfort, and consequently I had never seen him in her lap. I had even seen Jasper go to Russell and Edward for comfort a few times, but never Esme. Even if he was hurt and Esme was closest, he would go out of his way to find someone else, anyone else, just so long as it was not her.

At first I was disturbed by their inability to connect with one another, and I tried to help my wife with what she was doing wrong. Two of the more superficial problems were that they had nothing in common and never spent time together and that could easily have been rectified. But my wife was just a tad bit stubborn, and never took my advice on the subject. But then I never took my therapist's advice to stop spoiling the children either, so I could not really be one to talk.

And even if Esme had fixed the superficial issues, the root cause of the problem, that they had such total opposite personalities that they could not understand where the other was coming from, was insurmountable. My wife was the type of person that thought children should live in a magical fairy tale world where everything is dumbed down for them as they are fed sugar coated white lies to make the world seem like a less harsh place full of fluffy white bunnies.

Jasper's life so far had been anything but a fairy tale: from being born with a birth defect, to being present when his mother died, to discovering his father's body after the suicide, to killing that man in the bathroom last year. These events were hard to reconcile with a perfect fairy tale world, and even harder for someone like Jasper. He was the type of person who needed to be told everything straight with no sugar coating, filler, or fluff. He felt insulted when Esme bought him a children's history book when he was already reading at college level. He felt offended when she tried to treat him like a child and downright outraged when she told a white lie. Not only that, but Jasper has always been particularly in tune with emotions. He could sense when Esme was being insincere or was just placating him. He could also tell that she was more emotionally bonded to the other children and he resented her for it.

And as a consequence of this precarious relationship between the two, I had never before seen Jasper in Esme's arms. But that night Alice, who had not had a mother for over four years, crawled into Esme's arms to cuddle. And Jasper, wanting to get closer to his Alice, whom he was fascinated by, snuggled into Esme's other side. My wife wasted no time in taking full advantage of the rare opportunity and quickly shifted her over, and wrapped the other arm around him.

The three of them looked so cute cuddled together that I grabbed the camera and took a snapshot. I plan on getting it enlarged and framed for mother's day, which was quickly approaching. And with a new child in our lives, this mother's day was sure to be a special one.

Having Alice join the family turned out better than I could have ever dreamed. And despite Dr. Grant's warnings, we never had any problems with sexual harassment between Alice and Jasper. Esme and I laid out strict rules for them, insisting that they were not allowed to be in the same room together alone. Not even the living room: Edward or Russell always had to be with them if Esme and I were not. They were also not allowed to touch each other inappropriately or kiss on the mouth.

The two of them followed the rules to the letter, and we never caught them in violation. But whenever we asked Alice if she wanted to kiss Jasper on the mouth, she always answered with an affirmative. When we asked Jasper, he admitted that he had been thinking about it as well, but had held off because he was not old enough.

When Alice's adoption was finalized, Esme and I had her name legally changed to Alice Brandon Cullen, and her gender officially changed to female. The gender change request was unusual, but not unheard of in cases of intersexed individuals, so we did not have any trouble getting it approved. And with that approval, we officially had a daughter to go with our three sons, and our family was complete.


	26. Chapter 25

Author's Note: I know I don't say it enough, but I do still have a wonderful pre-reader for this story, Master of the Boot. Thanks Master, you are appreciated.

* * *

><p>Russell's POV:<p>

Our new sister Alice had just come to live with us and Esme decided to throw a welcome to the neighborhood party. She wanted to invite all of Jasper's classmates, so that Alice would get to meet the people she would be starting school with next week. And while she was at it, she invited all of Edward's too, because I never got to meet other kids my age and she was hoping that I would make a few friends.

I had two friends outside the family, Bella and Henry, but I had not met Edward's classmates before. Esme only threw him a little birthday party last year, because of all of the drama that was going on with me and Jasper at the time. His birthday was in the summer and not long after Jasper accidently killed that man in the bathroom.

So now that everything was back to normal, I was really looking forward to a party and meeting all of the other kids in this town. It was too cold for an outside party, so Esme had decorated the living room and set the dining room up with food and snacks. Jasper still had trouble with that many people, even though he seemed calmer with his new Alice and he already knew most of these kids. Carlisle had set Alice's room up with dance music so that Jasper and his friends could hide out in there if all of the people became too much for him.

Edward and I were in the living room entertaining all of the fifth graders and half of the third graders, when I noticed her: she was a pretty girl who was about an inch shorter than me with long blond hair. Her hair was straight, but she still reminded me of my sister Lily. "Who's that?" I asked Edward indicating the blond.

"That's Lauren. She's kind of mean to me and Bella," he explained before turning back to a dark haired boy named Bobby.

Bobby had just moved here and Edward seemed to have a bit of a crush if you ask me. But because were only ten, crushes amounted to stammering, blushing, and staring at one's shoes. I was sure glad I had not had one of those yet: Edward's crush made him look like a total dork.

"I thought you said you were going to ask Bella to dance at this party?" I asked him remembering when we had discussed this party last week. Bella was his best friend and a safe dance partner.

"Yeah, but when I told Dad he didn't like that idea," he admitted blushing.

"Why not?" I asked curiously.

"Well he told me that I should only ask boys or girls that I thought were pretty to dance. He asked me who the cutest kid in my class was, and when I said Bobby, he asked if I thought Bobby liked me back. I think he does, so Dad said he thought I should asked Bobby to dance," Edward revealed turning an even brighter shade of red and peaking over my shoulder at Bobby.

"Okay, cool," I said turning away from Edward and the blushing contest he seemed to be having with his Bobby, to go look for Lauren the blond. I was going to go over and introduce myself, without stammering thank you very much, but then I got an idea when I watched her flip her hair to the side: her hair would look so pretty in braids like I used to do to Lily's hair.

So I went into Alice's room, where I found her and Jasper slow dancing to a fast song. I also spotted Henry dancing with Bella and there were three other couples in the room too that I did not recognize. I would have cut in and asked Bella for a dance myself, knowing that Edward was not interested, but I had a mission. I walked straight over to Alice's dresser and retrieved a brush and a few hair ties, before exiting the room.

Then, armed with a brush, I approached Lauren. "Hi, I'm Russell, Edward's older brother," I introduced myself.

"Lauren," she replied extending her arm and blushing. Apparently the blushing thing was contagious and going around Edward's entire class. No wonder he had it so bad.

"I saw you from across the room and noticed your beautiful long hair. Do you want to go over there with me and talk?" I asked pointing to the piano nook in the corner. No one was playing, and although the nook was joined to the living room, it had walls on two sides, with half-walls on the other two and was semi-private.

"Sure," she said taking my hand.

I led Lauren over to the piano and we sat down on the bench. "I don't play, so don't get any ideas," I said as I caught her eyeing the piano.

"Then why'd you bring me over here?" she asked blushing.

"I told you: so we could get a little privacy while we talked. You have such pretty hair I was wondering if you'd let me braid it. I used to braid my little sisters' hair every day. What do you say? French, pigtails, or a band around the top?" I asked pulling out Alice's brush.

"You seriously want to braid my hair?" she asked staring at her hands instead of looking at my face.

I was tired of this avoidance of eye contact thing, so I set the brush down on the piano and lifted her chin up to look into her eyes. "You've got pretty blue eyes, why don't you show 'em when you talk to me?" I asked and earned myself another blush. "With hair like yours, of course I want to touch it and braid it. I bet it's soft."

"Okay," she replied shyly. "How does the band around the top look? I've never had that done before."

"Well it just wraps around your head like a headband. It's a skinny French braid," I explained.

She nodded, so I motioned for her to turn around and grabbed my brush. I began to brush her hair, and while I brushed, we talked. "So how many sisters did you have?" she asked.

"A lot. Not all of us were taken away in Beaver, but there were eleven of us total. I still see two of them all of the time. But the others all got placed in homes too far away to visit."

"They took your mother to jail and left you kids alone in a motel, right?"

"Yep."

"What was it like without a grown-up there? I mean I'd be so scared if my Mom never came home, but if I had the place to myself with no parental supervision, then I could do anything I wanted."

"You can't do anything you want: you have to lay low. If you called up all of your friends and had a party, their parents would know and wonder where your parents were. It's mostly just scary."

"What were you scared of?"

"Social Services mostly. We'd seen them pick up kids before and even talked to a few kids that'd returned from the system. Most kids don't get placed in nice homes like this one: I really lucked out."

"Where do most kids go?"

"Group homes."

"What're those?"

"Like orphanages, but they changed the name."

"Oh. So why don't you go to school with Edward and Jasper?"

"I get homeschooled. I learned different stuff when I was with my mother, like how to avoid the cops."

"You didn't have to go to school before?"

"I went once."

"Wow! You were so lucky! I wish I didn't have to go to school and could just stay home and play all day and watch TV!"

"It wasn't all fun: I had to watch Daisy while Mom worked."

"Who's Daisy?"

"My youngest sister. Well not youngest overall, but the youngest that was with us in Beaver."

"What happened to your younger ones?"

"They were boys and they both looked sick, so Mom dropped them off at the hospital and ran."

"So you did have brothers too?"

"Yeah. I really wanted a brother, but they were both sick, so we never got to keep 'em."

"Didn't Edward say you were really sick too when they found you?"

"Yeah. I had to have surgery and everything. Apparently it runs in my family for all of the boys to have the same problem."

"What was wrong with you?" she asked just as I finished the braid and added a hair tie.

I put down the brush and went to stand in front of Lauren. "I had a hole on my insides called a hernia. It means that my intestines could touch my muscles, which isn't good. But Dad opened me up and fixed it," I said lifting up my shirt a little to show her the top of the scar.

"How far down does it go?" she asked leaning in to get a closer look.

"Not far. Dad said he used little cameras so that he could make the cuts really small," I said pushing down my jeans half an inch so she could see the rest of the scars. There were three total, but they were all really small.

"Cool," she said while I backed up and readjusted my clothes.

"I finished your hair: now you look just like my sister Lily," I said leaning in to kiss her cheek. But just as I made contact with her cheek, she turned her head and brushed her lips against mine. At first I thought it might have been an accident, but then she pushed her lips harder to mine and reached up to pull her fingers through my hair.

I was a bit shocked, because I thought of this girl more as a possible Lily replacement than future girlfriend. Bella never tried to kiss Edward and she was a girl. What was wrong with this one to not understand? I never returned any of her blushes, so I had thought she knew I was not playing their stupid little blushing game.

It took me a moment to realize what was happening before I pulled away from her and exclaimed, "What part of, 'You look like my sister,' did you not understand!" before running away.

I ran up the stairs as fast as I could, not even caring who noticed me. I ran straight to my room and curled up under the blanket on my bed to think about what I had done wrong. Probably trying to kiss her on the cheek like I do Lily was a bad move, but I could not find anything else I had said or done to make her think I liked her that way. I was not even eleven yet: my birthday was still a little more than a month away. Surely I had time before all the puberty stuff started.

But I did not get long to think about my mistakes, because I heard the door open and Edward came to sit next to me on the bed. Only Edward was sitting on top of the blanket and I was still covered by the blanket, so I did not have to look at him while he spoke. "What happened Rus?"

"She kissed me," I admitted, trying not to cry.

"That sounds horrible. I would've run out of the room too if a girl had tried to kiss me."

"I told her she looked like my sister, braided her hair like Lily's, and tried to kiss her on the cheek like I do Lily. Why would she think that meant I liked her?" I asked pulling back the covers to look at my brother.

"I don't know. Who do you like? I call dibs on Bobby."

"I don't know. I don't really like anyone that way yet."

"Well if you had to pick someone to dance with, who'd it be?"

"I was thinking of asking Bella to dance earlier," I admitted.

"Why? I mean, she's my best friend, but she's as clumsy as they come," he teased.

"Well she's nice and sweet and smart. I also think she won't try to kiss me before I'm ready," I said noticing some movement by my door.

I was not sure how long my mom had been there listening to us and I sort of got the feeling that she had put Edward up to this in the first place, but I was still glad when she came over and wrapped Edward and me in her arms. "Are you gonna be okay Rus?" she asked me.

"I guess. It's just that was my first kiss and now it's ruined," I complained.

"Well the good thing about first kisses is that you get to have one with every girl or boy you like. Just because your very first one wasn't with someone you liked doesn't mean the next one will be. I bet your next first kiss is magical," she said kissing me on the top of my head.

"Thanks Mom," I replied.

"What about me? I spent the whole time trying to hint to Bobby that I wanted him to kiss me and what happens? Nothing. But Russell doesn't even try to kiss anyone and he still gets his first kiss first. And all of the girls are talking about how hot my older brother is. Even Bobby asked who the cute blond boy was," Edward complained to our mother.

"Sounds like he was asking about Jasper," I deflected.

"No, he was pointing at you," Edward replied.

"Well Russell's cute, but that doesn't mean Bobby doesn't like you too Edward," my mom soothed. "I bet he uses the adjective hot to describe you."

"Yeah right Mom. Bella thinks he likes girls anyway, so I haven't got a chance," Edward replied dejectedly.

"Well not everyone knows who they are right away like you. Maybe he's still figuring out who he likes. Give it time Tink," Mom said.

"What does Bella know? The only person I saw Bobby playing the blushing game with was you," I told my brother.

"The blushing game?" Mom asked.

"All the kids in Edward's class play this game where they blush at you and try to get you to blush back. They also refuse to make eye contact and look at their shoes a lot. And they stammer when they talk."

"Oh Rus, they're not playing a game. That's just a part of growing up: that's how they let each other know they like each other. Were any of the girls doing it to you?"

"Lauren was, but I didn't do it back, so I thought she understood that I didn't like her like that," I answered.

"Well some girls have more trouble reading prospective mates than others," Mom replied.

"What did she do after I left?" I asked dreading the answer.

"Well she stood there shocked for a moment. Then a whole pack of girls went over to her and asked what happened. She told them that she kissed you and you ran away and now I think she's the most popular girl at the party because all of the others want to know what kissing your soft dreamy lips was like," Mom teased.

"Well I can't go down there now," I moaned grabbing my pillow to hug and hiding my face in it.

"You have to Rus: you can't hide forever and it'll be better for you if you go down there and spend the rest of that party doing what you wanted to do. Go find a nice girl or boy to talk to: one that won't kiss you before you're ready and show that Lauren girl how to act properly at a party," Mom insisted.

"You could go dance with Bella, like you said before," Edward added.

"Only if you dance with Bobby," I replied.

"Deal," Edward agreed pulling me up.

The two of us went down the stairs and found Bella and Bobby in Alice's room. Henry had moved on to dance with a girl named Angela, Jasper and Alice were still going strong, but Bobby and Bella were just talking in the corner. And all of the other couples had vacated the room, probably to hear Lauren's retelling of that kiss. Yuck. Just thinking about it still sent shivers down my spine.

"Can we cut in?" I asked Bella and Bobby as Edward and I approached.

"Sure," Bella replied taking my hand.

"But you're a boy: we can't dance together," Bobby protested blushing.

"We don't have to touch or slow dance together. We could just dance near each other," Edward offered, but Bobby shook his head. "Come on: my brother just had a really bad experience with Lauren. Let him dance a song with your girl, while we watch. Bella's really clumsy, so I'm sure this'll be funny."

Bobby agreed, so he and Edward went towards where Henry and Angela were dancing and they each proceeded to dance as if they were not trying to dance with each other. And while they performed their strange ritual, Bella and I slowly twirled around the floor.

"So what happened with Lauren?" Bella asked stepping on my toe.

"She reminded me of my little sister so I offered to do her hair. I always kiss Lily on the cheek when I finish, so I leaned in to give Lauren a peck on the cheek, but she turned and kissed me full on the mouth. It was pretty gross. I think I'm gonna have to talk to my dad later about STDs because I feel pretty dirty and we didn't use a condom," I told her as I tried to steer our dancing away from the dresser so that she did not bump into it.

"I don't think there _are_ condoms for kissing…" Bella trailed off.

"There should be. Just think of all the places people put their mouths," I said shuttering.

"She didn't French kiss you, did she?" Bella asked me before bumping into the bed and adding in an, "Ouch!"

"What's that?" I asked wondering how Alice and Jasper never seemed to bump into furniture or step on each other's feet.

"Kissing with open mouths and tongue."

"No and if she did I would have filed rape charges against her," I replied completely grossed out at the idea.

"I don't think forced French kissing is what rape is."

"Then mouth rape charges," I supplied.

"Maybe," Bella replied stepping on my toes again.

"So is it all girls you object to kissing or just Lauren?" Bella asked blushing after a few moments of silence.

"Oh no! Not you too!" I exclaimed letting go and backing up, quickly.

"What?" Bella asked confused.

"Lauren looked just like that before she attacked me with her lips. I wonder if I can file lip assault charges with your dad when he comes to pick you up…"

"Relax, I'm not gonna kiss you. But you're the cutest boy at this party, so can you really blame all of the girls for wanting a piece of you?"

"Yeah, I can. And in my defense, Jasper is cuter than me. He's two years younger, making him cuter," I replied.

"Yeah, but Jasper's taken," Bella replied indicating where he was still dancing with Alice. "I'm pretty sure that those two're joined at the hip and'll require surgical separation."

"Probably. But Mom and Dad said that they're not allowed to kiss until they get older. I'm gonna ask if they can give me the same restriction and announce it to the world: maybe then you girls will stop attacking me," I replied as the song ended.

When I pulled away, thinking the dance and the song were over, Bella ran towards Alice's bed and grabbed a pillow, which she proceeded to throw at me. Edward, Bobby and I each grabbed pillows and began tossing, so the dance room quickly broke down into a pillow fight room. But somewhere in the middle of all that, Jasper and Alice ducked out, because the next time I saw them they were in the piano nook and Alice was playing for everyone, but by then the parents were already pulling up to pick up their children and the party was over. Thank Darwin. I probably would not survive another party like that one.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: So the kids are getting older and growing up. Russell had his first kiss and Edward has his first crush. The idea of them growing up is starting to bother me; am I the only one?<p> 


	27. Chapter 26

Russell's POV:

When my new little sister said that I would meet my best friend while he was in the midst of being attacked by a bear, I never thought that in a million years her prediction would come true. Not even when I noticed that her predictions tended to come true did I ever stop to think that maybe the bear one would too. And when Alice asked Dad out of the blue if we could go to his cabin in Tennessee for the week because that is where and when I would find our new brother, I thought to myself, "Yes! My new sister's gonna get me out of school for a week for an extended hunting trip!"

Not once did I put any weight on the notion that I might actually find this Emmett on said hunting trip, although he was not being attacked by a bear when we met. I first saw Emmett with his dad, carrying fire wood back to their cabin. They lived in the next cabin over, so when I met him, I thought that it was just a coincidence that his name was Emmett.

I did not even know that our family owned this cabin out in the middle of nowhere, but Dad said that it had belonged to his parents before they died. He used to come out here every month with them and go hunting, but he had not been since he was a little boy. Instead he hired Emmett's dad to take care of it and rent it out to tourists.

It was such a remote little cabin that I had a hard time believing that Emmett actually lived in a place like this full-time. Our cabin had two bedrooms and one central communal room that served as both kitchen and living room. As for a bathroom, there was none: there was an outhouse out back and we had to wash up in a bucket or in the river: not exactly my idea of fun.

And the bathroom was just the beginning of my complaints about this camping trip: that there were only two bedrooms was the most serious problem with this place. And the two bedrooms it did have were _tiny_: you could fit the entire cabin into my room back home, literally. Mom and Dad took one room and Jasper, Edward, and I split the bunk bed with the trundle in the other room. And those mattresses were all old and _lumpy_.

The worst part was that Alice did not seem to mind at all: she kept going around with a cheery smile on her face even though she had to sleep on the couch in the living room slash kitchen. "What do you have to be so happy about?" I asked her when I could not take the happiness any longer.

"I met my new brother Emmett today. We're gonna sit around the camp fire and roast marsh mellows and tell stories," she replied. "You'll cheer up once you talk to your Emmett."

"Why do you keep calling him my Emmett? If we're adopting him, then he'll be everyone's brother and that Emmett can't be ours because he's not an orphan."

"He will be tomorrow morning. And you'll save him and be best friends with him, so he's yours more than mine, but you'd be in a lot better mood if you just went to talk to him."

"Save him from what?" I asked incredulously. "Life out in the middle of the wilderness?"

"The bear," she answered knowingly before skipping outside to pick flowers or something.

Normally I liked camping trips, but normally we only went for three days, tops. And our trips were so filled with hunting that I never even noticed how small the tent was. But this time we had spent twelve hours on a plane followed by six hours in a car before stopping at the store. Then we loaded our rental car up with supplies, which I had to help drag up the mountain because there was no driveway and our car was only four-wheel drive, not helicopter equipped. So by the time we got in last night, I went straight to bed on that lumpy pull-out trundle bed, which may have contributed to my bad mood this morning.

"You should just be glad to get out of school for an entire week," Edward suggested.

Edward, Alice, and Jasper were already out of school for the summer, but I do not get summer breaks, because Dad wants me to catch up to my proper grade. I finished second grade already this school year, but I still had two months left of third. And by the time I finish third grade, I will be ready to start fourth grade with Jasper in the fall. It was taking me awhile, but in another two years I would be completely caught up.

Sometimes I hated that I hardly ever got any time off from school, but then I also did not like being behind the other children my age. And because I got one-on-one attention, my school day was shorter than Edward and Jasper's, so it was not all bad. Plus, I only got a fraction of the homework they got. Jasper and Edward were always bringing packets full of work home, while I just had to read for an hour every night. Jasper even had to help me with my reading, so my workload really was not that bad.

I used to have all of those extra hours after homeschool filled up by therapy sessions, but I was doing so much better in therapy this year that my sessions had been cut in half, so now I had all of the extra time to play. With Jasper, Alice, and Edward still in school until three, I had no one to play with. Now that they were all out for the summer, they were available to play as soon as I got out of class, but I could also hear them playing outside my window while I was still in class, so it was a lose-lose situation.

At least when I start fourth grade in the fall, Jasper will be homeschooled with me, so I will not be all alone anymore. Jasper was a genius, so my dad wanted him to skip two grades so that he will not be so bored in school all of the time. And since I am already being homeschooled, Dad said Jasper could go to school with me until we are both in Edward's grade. And only then will I get to go to regular school.

Alice was not particularly a fan of this plan, because Jasper was already in her grade. If he skipped two grades, then she would be left alone in the fourth grade. But she was not as smart as him and she was even a little behind the other kids her age because she had grown up in a mental hospital, so there was no way that she would be able to keep up with our homeschool curriculum. Plus Alice had never been to a real school or been around normal kids, which Mom and Dad thought was more important for her than worrying about keeping up with Jasper, so Alice would continue to go to public school with Edward. And although they were not in the same class, they at least went to the same school and would have lunch breaks and recess together, so she would not be completely alone.

"Yeah, but Mrs. Barnes still gave me this book that I've got to read by the time I get back," I replied, holding my stupid book out to Edward. Reading was my worst subject, so I always got the most reading homework. I hate reading homework.

"Well make Jasper read it to you tonight. Let's go swimming: Dad said there's a little pool down the way a bit, where the river swells up because of a beaver dam," Edward suggested.

I agreed and we spent several hours playing in the warm water under the hot summer sun. I had all but forgotten my earlier bad mood by the time lunchtime rolled around. Esme made cornbread and chili, which was delicious and took my mind off of my problems. And after that Jasper and I went with dad hunting: Jasper brought down a duck, while I got a rabbit and Dad showed us how to roast them over a fire for dinner.

The next morning the entire family got up to go down to the McCarty cabin to await Alice's bear attack. Jasper, Dad, and I had our guns, while Alice and Edward had Dad's medical kit, and Mom was armed with a pie. The pie was our excuse for our ridiculous behavior caused by the fact that my sister was convinced the bear was coming this morning and our family wanted to be there to protect Emmett and his dad from said bear. We all enjoyed the pie and never once caught sight of a bear. Everyone agreed that Alice must have made a mistake or the future must have changed or that Alice was not psychic. We spent several hours arguing over which of the three was really the case, but the key thing was that Emmett and his dad were safe and there was no bear, so with that danger out of the way, I set about enjoying the rest of my vacation.

The rest of the week went more smoothly, with Jasper reading to me every night, so by the time Friday came around, I had all but forgotten Alice's failed prophecy. I had been making an effort all week to avoid Emmett, but that night he had seen us sitting at our campfire and asked to join us, so I handed him a marsh mellow roaster and scooted over.

The five of us kids were having such a good time that I barely noticed when Emmett's father, Mr. McCarty joined our parents. We were telling ghost stories when I first noticed him: Alice turned and asked him, "Mr. McCarty, how long've your folks been living in these parts?"

"Hundreds of years, young lady. The McCartys and the Cullens've been neighbors for near two hundred years. We're even related," he replied.

"Really? I thought you said you only had the relatives in Alaska Dad?" Edward asked.

"Distantly," Dad replied.

"Yep. My Great Great Grandpappy made a trade with old Mr. Cullen: they each had one daughter and one son and they swapped daughters. The Cullen lass married my Great Granddad, while the McCarty lass went ta live with the Cullens. There aren't many McCartys left, just me and the boy, but it's in the will that if ever the McCarty name dies out, the Cullen who owns the neighboring cabin gets ours too. That way the land stays in the family and none of them city slickers come in here and bull-doze down the forest," Mr. McCarty finished.

"So you don't have any family left besides us? What if something happened to you, who would take Emmett?" Alice asked innocently.

It was then that I realized what she was up to: she was getting Emmett's father to will his son to us, because she still thought her bear attack was really going to happen: it was Tuesday morning all over again. But it was already Friday, the fifth day of a seven day trip and Sunday night we would pack up and Monday we would be back in Forks. Surely if something bad was going to happen, it would have happened Tuesday morning, like she predicted. Jasper and I had been all through these woods hunting and never came across any sign of bears in the area.

"Well I hope it don't come ta that, but if something were ta happen ta me, I'd have ta ask ya folks to take my boy and my land, although that would be a mighty inconvenience asking ya all ta move out here from the city…" Mr. McCarty trailed off.

"Well lucky you're in good health so we don't even have to think about that," my dad replied giving Alice the eye. He had told her not to tell this man of her prophecy. I was pretty sure Dad believed her, because he was out there with his rifle Tuesday morning just like the rest of us, but he probably thought the danger had passed and he probably did not want to start a fuss over a prophecy that had already been proven wrong.

After that we called it a night and crammed back into the tiny cabin for the night. Jasper read my book to me, with me looking over his shoulder at the words the entire time. Sometimes I would stop him at the hard words and ask him to go over them a few times with me, because I knew that I was going to be quizzed on this book when we got back to Forks.

The next morning everyone woke up early to go hiking, but I was still sore from our hunting trip the day before, so I told everyone to go on without me. I was also tired from waking up so early every day and playing in the river all day every day, so I really wanted a chance to sleep in. I swear to Darwin I had just gotten back to sleep when a loud roar woke me up. The first roar was quickly followed by more of the same kind, with the sound of a rifle going off in between. I jumped to my feet thinking that Jasper must be out there shooting something that had gotten too close to our cabin, so I quickly pulled on my hiking boots, grabbed my rifle, and headed out the door while still loading the shot.

When I opened our cabin door, I immediately saw what was making all of the noise: there was indeed a bear chasing Emmett, just like in Alice's drawing. Emmett was already injured, running towards our cabin, and dragging his rifle along behind him. "Help! I can't kill it and it already got my pa!" he shouted as he saw me.

By this time my rifle was cocked and loaded, so I took aim at the bear's head and shot it clean in the skull: Jasper was going to be jealous over this kill. The bear started to wobble, but it did not fall, so I quickly recocked the rifle and took aim again, shooting the bear square in the chest before it fell, but it was still breathing, so I recocked and I walked towards the downed animal and took aim at the head again. And with that last shot, the brains and blood went flying, so I was pretty sure it was dead.

"You okay Emmett?" I asked running back to where he had fallen.

Emmett had a couple of gashes and was bleeding a lot, so when all I got back was a grumble for an answer, I ran in the cabin and grabbed my mom's cell phone. Edward and I had both been begging for our own cell phones, but Mom and Dad were still holding out on us. But since we were out here without a phone, Mom had left her phone for me in case of emergency, while Dad kept his on him.

I quickly scrolled through the contacts until I found my Dad's name and pressed send. I could hear Emmett moaning while I was waiting for my dad to pick up, so I starting walking to my parents' room to get Dad's medical kit. Just as I found it Dad picked up and I told him what happened. He said he was on his way back and that he would call for help, so I took Dad's kit out to Emmett and tried to decide what to do. I could make things worse, so leaving him until Dad got back was high up on my list of options.

Emmett was bleeding a lot and I had seen Dad bandage a ton of wounds in the year and a half that I had been with the Cullens. Dad even still makes us go sit with old people at the hospital, despite the fact that I insisted that I was allergic to old people. Seriously, they smell. Badly. Jasper and I even started sneezing around them, but Dad just did not buy the allergy story and would not let us out of it no matter how much we complained, so I had seen him bandage up a ton of smelly old people. Old people are practically the same species as kids, so this could not be that different, right?

And with that in mind I decided to act and I opened Dad's bag and found some gauze and antibacterial spray. I sprayed the gashes on Emmett's arms and leg, and then wrapped them up. "Help me keep pressure on them," I said as I tried to stop the bleeding from his leg.

Emmett used his left arm to apply pressure to the deepest gashes on his right arm, but kept muttering something in between sobs. After a while, I finally made out what he was saying, "My pa's dead! The bear got him!" over and over again.

I did not know what do to after that, but luckily I was not waiting long before my dad showed up with the rest of my family. He quickly took over and changed the bandages, cleaning the wounds as he went. "You did a really good job Russell. These dressings look fairly clean and you stopped most of the bleeding," my dad complimented me over Emmett's sobs.

I did not have to hear Emmett's cries for long after that, thank Darwin, because Dad gave him a shot for the pain and put him to sleep. And it was only ten minutes after that a rescue helicopter came and took Emmett and Dad away. Of course they also stopped by Emmett's place to pick up his father's corpse, but then they were on their way and I was left alone with Mom, Edward, Jasper and Alice. Alice: she knew that this was going to happen.

"Alice, why didn't you tell me this was the morning he was gonna be attacked? Why did you all go off if you knew?" I asked breaking down from the stress and shock.

"I did tell you all. But I thought it was gonna be Tuesday and when it didn't happen, I thought maybe Sunday, but I never saw any chance of it happening Saturday! I was trying to watch out for them all week. I checked this morning before we left and I was certain that the bear was gonna come tomorrow!" Alice cried from her spot in Jasper's arms.

"Alice did everything she could to make sure you would be safe this morning when we left you alone. She made me leave my cell phone for you, as well as double checking that the rifle, shot, and medical kit were all still in the cabin ready to go, just in case," my mom defended my sister.

"Alice's telling the truth: she's been telling me and Jasper ever since Tuesday that the bear's supposed to come on Sunday and we should all get our guns and be waiting for it to save Emmett's dad," Edward added.

"Enough arguing, Alice is not infallible or omnificent. She helped you saved one life today, which is more than anyone should ask from her. We all staked out their cabin Tuesday and Carlisle and I helped Mr. McCarty set up bear traps after Alice's warning. Now Emmett is on his way to the local hospital and we need to be there to support him through this horrible time when he wakes up. So get in the car and let's go," my mom ordered.

"Wait: I need to get Mr. McCarty's will so we can take Emmett home with us," Alice interrupted our exodus.

"Fine," Mom replied as she gathered up supplies for the long road trip. "But make it quick and take Jasper with you."

Fifteen minutes later we were packed, in the car, and on our way to the hospital to see Emmett. "You know, you and I were hunting all week looking for bear," Jasper began. "We never saw any bear tracks. We really did try to protect them Rus, but we couldn't watch them every moment of every day and you weren't exactly helping."

"Fine," I admitted. "I didn't believe you Alice. If I had, I would've tried harder to save them too. You all took more than enough precautions to ensure that these strangers were safe, but why does this boy matter so much anyway? That we would travel across the entire country to save him from a bear…" I trailed off thinking about how surreal the whole experience had been.

"He's your Emmett, Russell," was Alice's quiet response. "You and Emmett will be like me and Jasper."

"But you're a girl and Jasper's a boy. Emmett and I're both boys! And you're intersexed like the rest of us, but Emmett's normal," I protested.

"No, Emmett has something too. I don't know what it is yet: I can't see. But Dad'll tell us when we get to the hospital and just because my best friend'll also be my husband someday doesn't mean yours has to be your husband too. You and Emmett'll be brothers and the best of friends," Alice insisted.

I spent the next half hour of the car ride in silence thinking about what Alice had said. I loved Jasper and Edward, but was it possible that I would love this new brother more? That he would be my best friend beyond all others? That the one person that I would look at like Jasper looked at Alice was just a friend to me? Would I never find love then?

This last thought was really confusing me, because now that I was eleven, I definitely had a crush on a girl. I knew it was not true love yet, but I also knew that I had the hots for Bella Swan. What I liked most about Bella was that she was sweet and smart and we were already good friends. Her body was long and lanky, her face okay, and her hair was a beautiful dark brown. Was there no chance that Bella would be my Alice? As I was thinking this, I noticed Edward was staring at me.

"You're thinking about Bella aren't you?" he asked.

"Yeah," I replied blushing. I had finally caught Edward's blushing disorder.

"Bella is Edward's best friend. She's like his Emmett," Alice stated.

This really confused me, because everyone knew that Edward liked boys, but then the more I thought about this, the more it made sense: Edward and Bella really were best friends. They were like two peas in a pod, even though neither was physically attracted to the other. They had a friendship which was as strong as Jasper and Alice's, but not sexual. That must be what I would have with Emmett.

And as it turned out, Alice was right. But then again Alice was always right. Sometimes fate just cannot be prevented and no matter how hard you try to prevent a bear attack, it still happens just the same. No matter how hard I fought Alice, Emmett still became my brother and my best friend. We became friends that first day in the hospital.

I had been waiting by Emmett's bedside for over an hour, thinking that he would wake up any moment. But as soon as I gave up and stepped out to get a drink from the nurse down the hall, Edward poked his head out of Emmett's doorway and yelled, "Hey Rus! Get back in here: he's waking up!"

So I grabbed my apple juice and returned just in time to hear Edward telling Emmett, "Now just close your eyes and stay asleep for a moment longer: Russ's been waiting all of this time and I don't want to ruin it."

"Ruin what Tink?" I asked in between sips of my juice.

"Ruin his first sight when he opens his eyes: I want him to see his savior."

"Yeah right Tink. Alice says I'm gonna be his best friend, not his savior," I replied.

"You already saved me," Emmett said opening his eyes. "When I was dreaming, I thought you were an angel."

"Yeah right," I replied in between fits of laughter, but then I started choking on my juice and Edward started patting me on the back.

Emmett and I bonded that day. He looked up to me for saving his life, and I looked up to him as my new older brother. And I finally got my wish to be the hero. Alice had even been correct about Emmett having a medical condition like the rest of us. He fit right in and now there were five intersexed Cullen children.

A few days after he arrived at the hospital, Emmett's tests came back and my dad finally knew what he had. I was sitting with Emmett, holding his hand in an attempt to make him feel better about his dad's death, when my dad came in.

"I got your test results back Emmett. It turns out you have Klinefelter's syndrome as well as mosaic chimerism," my dad announced.

"What's that?" Emmett asked.

"Klinefelters is a genetic syndrome caused by a chromosomal abnormality. Normally girls have two X chromosomes and boys have one X and one Y, but Klinefelter's boys have two Xs and one Y chromosomes, for a total of three sex chromosomes. This causes some minor problems ranging from reduce mental capacity to infertility and a slightly more feminine appearance. But Emmett, you do not have any of these symptoms, because of something very special that happened inside your cells when you were just a little embryo inside your mother. One of your cells spontaneously lost the Y chromosome, retaining only the two Xs, and are thus normal female cells. A large fraction of your cells are descended from this cell and the two types mixed to make your body into a mosaic of the two. The mosaicism is correcting the Klinefelter's, leading to a mostly normal body," Dad explained.

"Okay, but then why do I got both girl and boy parts?" Emmett asked.

"There are two differences between your two types of cells. The Klinefelter's cells are like sick boy cells, while the others are healthy girl cells. The two types seem to both be distributed over your entire body with a fairly even mix and are working together to make you a healthy boy. Other than the difference of that one Y chromosome, the cells are identical and do not class. But in the genital region it suddenly becomes very important if there are cells belonging to two different sexes present. Each type tries to take over and make the body its own sex.

"Your girl cells are trying to make you into a girl and your boy cells are trying to make you into a boy. Normally whoever gains control of the gonads when, so if there happen to be all boy cells there, they would turn into testes and would make a boy, even the girl cells. Or if only girls cells where in the gonads, they would turn into ovaries and a girl, even the boy cells. But you have one ovary and one testis, because one was made up of girl cells and the other boy cells. The two opposite gonads then pulled your body in opposite ways, to make your exact mix. On the inside, the girl ovary seems to have won, because most of your internal reproductive parts are female. On the outside, the boy testis is responsible for the micropenis.

"Normally micropenises are treated at birth with hormone shots to increase the size, but it looks like you never received any treatment before. You're already twelve years old, so I can go ahead and start testosterone shots now, if you would like them."

"What'll the shots do?" Emmett asked.

"Well they normally make boys grow taller, but you're producing plenty of estrogen right now and you're already pretty tall. In your case the shots will probably interfere with your natural hormone production, which could cause any number of problems, like preventing you from growing anymore. Apart from that, the hormones will help your penis grow. With a few shots, you should be able to start peeing standing up like normal boys," my dad answered.

Emmett's penis was tiny, even smaller than Alice and Edward's and he had to pee sitting down. I saw it once when the nurse was giving him a sponge bath: it looked more like a button that a penis. If it had not been for the fact that he was peeing out of it, I would have sworn that it was not a penis at all.

"So when I grow up, will I be able to have kids if I take these shots?" Emmett asked.

"Well you're not producing sperm, so enlarging your penis will not help your chances of being a father. But you do have a uterus, ovary, fallopian tube, and vagina, so you may be able to be a mother. But unless you get your period soon, you may be completely infertile. I'm sorry, Emmett. Did you want children?"

"Yes. My pa was always telling me that I need to continue the McCarty line."

"Well then your best bet would be to not take the shots. And then we would not have to worry about the hormones interfering with your growth," Dad replied.

"Okay, then I don't want the shots," Emmett concluded bravely. I would have taken the shots if it were me. But then I would have been horrified if my penis was that small and Emmett seemed fine with himself.

"If Emmett can be a mother someday, doesn't that make him a girl?" I asked.

"You should know better than anyone Russell that we are whichever sex we choose," Dad scolded. "What sex do you want to be Emmett?"

"I'm a boy," Emmett answered simply. He even looked like a boy. He was only a year older than me, but he was already going through puberty and he definitely looked all man on the outside. And my family was about loving who you are no matter what is wrong with you, so we would all accept him for who he was.

A few days after those test results came back Emmett was well enough to go home and with the will Alice found, my parents had no problems gaining temporary guardianship over him, so we took him back home with us to Forks and our family was finally complete.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Whoa! Emmett's here. What do you think?<p> 


	28. Chapter 27

Edward's POV:

I was born in Chicago, but moved with my parents to the middle of nowhere when I was two. My father's law firm was setting up an office in Neilton Washington, and my mother wanted to live out in the woods, so we lived in a large estate halfway between Neilton and the tiny town of Forks. I remember being happy there and playing outside on my swing set while I watched my mother and father sitting on the porch together holding hands, but that is the only memory I have there in Neilton.

My happy family was destroyed by a single vacation to Hong Kong. We used to go on trips all of the time, especially across the ocean to places like Hong Kong, because my father went on many business trips to the city; the frequent trans-Pacific flights were the main reasons for starting the office in Neilton. And it was one of these business trips that had led my family to be in Hong Kong during that fateful year when SARS first broke out.

The three of us made it back to the States before any of us got really sick, but that did not last long and we were all admitted to the closest hospital, Forks General Hospital. My parents died, but I lived and was adopted by one of the doctors from the hospital, Carlisle Cullen. My adopted father lived in Forks, so that is how I came to live in this small town when I was seven. Less than a year after being adopted, my adopted father met my adopted mother, and they quickly fell in love and were married. She came with a foster child of her own, making an instant family of four.

The four of us were the typical happy family, despite our unusual beginnings. and it was not long before our family grew again, first with the addition of Russell, then Alice, and finally Emmett. Now there were seven Cullens and all five of us children were intersexed. Jasper and Alice both had Guevedoche, Emmett had mosaic chimerism and Klinefelter's syndrome, and Russell had PAIS.

As for me, I was born with a micropenis and a hypospadias. A hypospadias just means that my pee-hole is on the underside of my penis. There is a flap of skin down there that covers it, which I really like, because that means if someone peeks at me naked they will only see a small penis, not a small penis with the pee-hole in the wrong place and the tip thingy all weird looking.

I asked Dad once why my tip looked different and he said and I quote, "The lower position of the urethral opening causes the downward sloping appearance of the glands. You're actually really lucky, Tink, because yours is very minor and it looks almost normal. Not even surgery can fix it and make it appear as normal as yours already does." "Urethral opening" means pee-hole, "glands" are what Dad calls the tip of the penis when he is being a doctor, and "downward sloping appearance" is what he calls the funny shape, so what he really said was, "The funny shape of the tip of the penis is caused by the pee-hole being too low." I know, because I am studying to be a doctor when I grow up and Russell is always asking me to translate my dad's doctor speak into English for him.

Dad thought that I was really lucky to not need surgery and I really did not want someone to go down there with a knife, but sometimes I wished that he would just give me a surgery and fix it once and for all, because I was really embarrassed by my penis. It is tiny and boys pick on other boys with small things and on top of that mine looks funny, so I was constantly worried that someone would see it and tease me. The way it looks was definitely the worst part about the whole birth defect thing.

My embarrassment made me quick to hide my penis around other boys. We are not supposed to look at each other's stuff at school, but we boys are supposed to pee in a urinal where everyone can see. They just pull out their things and pee, right there, in front of everyone! Yuck! I always go in the stall to pee. That way was easier, because then I could pull my pants and underwear down properly so that I do not dribble on myself. With the pee-hole on the bottom and covered up by the skin, the pee leaks on me if I try to pee like all the other boys. But, when I go in the stall, I move my clothes out of the way, pull the skin back, and sit down. Then if the pee dribbles, it dribbles in the toilet and I can just dry myself off with the toilet paper, instead of having to changes my pants or underwear. Sure peeing standing up was kind of fun to do at home where I can change easily, but it was just not worth the risk at school.

Russell and Jasper were both really good at the whole peeing standing up thing, but I was not alone in sitting down on the toilet: both Alice and Emmett sat too. And even though Jasper and Russell both preferred to pee standing up, Dad told them to pee in the stalls too. Sure they could leave their pants up and just pull out their things and whizz, but they also had things to hide, so peeing in the stalls was a Cullen thing.

Having difficulty peeing standing up was annoying, and I hated the funny shape, but by far the worst thing about my penis is that it is tiny. I look like I am three years old down there. All the other boys were going through puberty and had giant snakes in their pants, but not me. Russell even started having trouble running, because his junk got in the way! Dad took him to the store to get a cup and told him to, "Pick a side and keep it there," whatever that means. A side for the cup? It sounded really uncomfortable to me, but Russell said it worked and he could run again.

I just hope that someday _I_ have trouble running because _my_ penis is so long that it gets caught in between _my_ legs. At the rate I was going, it did not seem likely, but I still had hope. Dad said that starting on my twelfth birthday he would give me testosterone shots. Testosterone is a medicine for boys that will help me grow where it really matters most. I was eleven and my twelfth birthday was just around the corner.

I was really looking forward to my birthday this year for the above mentioned medical reasons, but also I was hoping my mom would throw me a party. Mom liked to throw big parties and invite everyone from my class at school, that way my brother Russell could meet new kids. Russell and Jasper were being homeschooled and had just finished fifth grade, while I had just finished sixth grade in public school. So Mom made up for the lack of interaction with kids their own age by inviting my entire class over. Not only had Jasper finished two grades this past year, but he had managed to do so before Russell, when Russell was the older one who was supposed to be finishing quickly. As a result, Jasper was out for summer vacation with the rest of us, while Russell was still stuck inside for five hours every day.

But Jasper's brains were nothing compared to what my sister Alice could do: Alice was psychic. We were all a bit skeptical at first, except for Jasper of course, because he worshipped the ground she walked on. It was sickening how lovey-dovey those two were, even though he was only ten and she had another two months left of being nine. Mom and Dad even had a rule that they were not allowed to kiss on the mouth, because those two were so mushy.

But back to Alice's psychic abilities: we all became believers after our vacation last year when we went to Tennessee for a week and came back with a new brother. Alice had tried to save his father, but in the end, only Emmett was saved. A bear had attacked the pair and our brother Russell had fired the fateful shot that had killed the bear and saved Emmett.

Emmett was a wonderful older brother to have. He was a year older than me and one grade ahead of me at school. He was so much fun to be around that he had a ton of friends already, but he always made time to hang out with me. He was not into toys anymore and he had more in common with Jasper and Russell, because they all loved sports, but he still always made time for me and Alice. Emmett loved to play games, so the three of us played video games and chess together all of the time.

But although Emmett was older, he had no experience with dating. Russell and I were already at that stage where we were flirting and had crushes, so sometimes we would ask Emmett who he thought was cute. Russell would point out pretty girls, while I would point out cute boys, and we would spend hours trying to find someone who Emmett would blush at. But it never happened: he never blushed at anyone. Emmett was content with being friends and just was not ready to date yet.

And although I was really hoping that Emmett would be the type of older brother with dating advice, I did have one other older brother to turn to: Russell was two months older than me and he already had experience. Russell had been dating my best friend Bella for nine months now. They had been crushing on each other for months before that and then one day Bella came over and asked him to go steady and they have been a thing ever since.

Bella was my other source of dating advice. I would go over to her house and we would lay on her bed and gossip for hours about the boys in our class: which one had the nicest butt, which one had the dreamiest eyes, which one did I wish would kiss me. Of course she would always come back to how nice Russell's violet eyes or perky round behind were and I would gag and ask her not to talk about my brother that way.

Bella and I had been friends since third grade when I moved to this tiny town, so I could talk to her about anything, including being gay. I had always known that I was different than other boys, although I had not realized that that meant I was gay. I remember being fascinated the first time I ever saw two men kiss, but I was only eight at the time and was too young to understand why men kissing felt right, while my dad kissing my mom was just gross.

It was talking to my dad back in fifth grade, before Alice's welcome to the family party, when the knowledge that I am gay first became cemented in my mind. It was the first real boy slash girl party and Dad took me for a walk in the forest, just the two of us, and asked, "So Tink, have you thought about who you're going to ask to dance at the party?"

"I'm gonna ask Bella to go with me," I replied jumping over a large tree root sticking out of the ground.

"Bella huh?" he asked casually.

"Yeah. I figure if I just ask her to go with me, then she'll dance with me the whole party and I won't have to worry about asking other girls."

"Let's sit over there for a little while," he said, pointing to a low-lying tree branch not far off the path, before heading in that direction. I nodded and followed. "Do you like Bella?"

"Yeah, you know that: she's my best friend," I said climbing up the branch first.

Dad smiled at me before pulling himself up to sit on the branch too. "I mean like-like, as in a crush. When I like someone, I think about kissing him or her; especially when I look at her lips. Do you ever get the urge to kiss Bella?"

"I've kissed her on the cheek, like I do with Mom."

"No, real kissing: on the mouth." I shook my head. "Do you want to kiss anyone on the mouth?"

"None of the other girls are as nice as Bella," I answered shrugging. If I did not want to kiss her, then I certainly was not going to kiss one of the other girls who were not even my best friend.

"It doesn't have to be a girl. Remember when you were little and we used to go to group therapy with that nice family, what were their names? The little girl was Sarah and her dad's name was Jack. I can't remember Jack's husband's name right now, but remember when they kissed that time at the park?"

"Yeah," I replied, not sure where he was going with this.

"Well you don't have to kiss girls. You could kiss boys. Have you wanted to kiss any boys on the lips?"

"Um…" I said, thinking about the new kid in class. He had perfect pink lips that I had spent hours staring at, but I had not really thought about why I kept staring at his lips.

"You wouldn't get in trouble if you had. Nothing would change between us and that goes for you and Mom too. I know some other people make liking boys seem like a bad thing, but not me. I think liking boys is just as normal and natural as liking girls," he said.

Dad kept talking, but I zoned out while I thought about just these first few sentences. He seemed to want me to tell him that I wanted to kiss a boy. I wanted to make him happy, so I sat there and thought about what it would be like to kiss a boy. I thought about a few of the best looking boys in my class and what their lips looked like and then I tried to imagine kissing them and what their lips would feel like. I thought about kissing John first, but he never talked to me, so I could not picture it. Then I thought about kissing Brian's bright red lips, but he always had chapped lips, so that seemed kind of gross, because I kept imagining his lips to be all hard and dry and scratchy when I pressed my lips to them. Third, I tried to picture kissing Evan, but the only picture of him I could bring to mind was his face last Monday after he had taken a sip of his milk, which just happened to be spoiled. His face scrunched up and he spit out the milk, which was not one of his most attractive moments. I just could not get passed his scrunched up blond eyebrows enough to picture kissing his milk covered lips. Yuck.

But then I tried to picture kissing Bobby, the new kid in our class, and everything changed. I had spent all of my free time in class for the past two weeks staring at his lips, so I had no problem at all picturing them. They were pink and full and they looked soft. I imagined that those lips would be soft and warm and nice when I pressed up against them with my own lips. He would taste like cherries, because he was always using cherry flavored chap-stick. Would he open his mouth, like they do in the movies, and let me stick my tongue inside? Would his straight white teeth be sharp against my tongue? Would he moan my name and kiss me back?

"Tink? Edward? Edward! Hello, Earth to Edward Anthony Masen Cullen!" my dad called, interrupting my thoughts. He must have realized that I was not paying attention.

"Huh?" I asked, trying to pull my head out of the cloud of thoughts of Bobby.

"Where were you just now Tink? What're you thinking about?"

"What you said."

"What part?" he asked, but I just shrugged. "Tink? You can tell me. You know that right? That you can tell me anything and I'll always love you because you're my son and that's how unconditional love works?"

"Kissing a boy," I muttered quickly, hoping to appease him without having to provide details.

"Did you already kiss one?" he asked excitedly.

"No."

"Well, do you want to?" he asked and I nodded slowly. "That's great! I'm so proud of you Tink!" Dad threw his arms around me and wrapped me in a great big hug. He did it so fast that I almost fell out of the tree. In fact, I would have fallen if he had not been holding me in place with his tight hug.

"Can't breathe," I lied. Hugging your dad was embarrassing for kids my age.

"Well, who is it? Which boy do you like?" he asked and I shrugged again. "Come on, you can tell me. If you don't want Mom to know, I can keep it a secret."

"Bobby," I answered shyly.

"Bobby, as in Officer Robert's son?" Officer Robert was the new policeman who worked with Bella's dad Charlie and he just happened to be Bobby's father, so I nodded. "That's great! Bobby came into the hospital to get his shots over the summer: he seemed like a nice kid."

"You seem really happy."

"I am- my son has his first crush. Do you know how long I've been waiting for this day?"

"No."

"Ever since your seventh birthday Tink. I've been hoping that I would be the type of father that you felt you could tell everything too. The fact that you just told me about Bobby is a dream come true for me."

"You don't want me to kiss girls?"

"No. I want you to kiss whoever you want to kiss," he said, but I got the distinct impression that he wanted me to like boys.

"So I shouldn't ask Bella to dance?" I asked, remembering what he had said earlier.

"I think you should ask whoever you want to kiss to dance."

"So if I want to kiss Bobby, I should ask him to dance?"

"Well, he has to like you too. Not every attraction is mutual, so he may say no. But you'll never know unless you ask. Do you think he likes you too Tink?"

I thought about it for a few minutes, but at that point, I just did not know. "How can I tell?"

"Well if he watches you a lot and if you catch him looking at you and then he smiles, then he probably likes you."

"Okay, I'll watch him this week at school to see if he looks at me," I replied and that was the end of our talk, for the day. We got off of the branch and found the trail and walked back home. But when I went to school, I did make it a point to watch Bobby and see if he was looking at me or smiling at me.

I caught Bobby staring at me every day that week, so I told Dad, and he said, "So you should ask him to dance at the party, Tink." Then he went on to talk about gay rights and how proud he was to have a gay son and that was when I realized that there was a word for how I was different and that word was gay. I was gay. I am gay and Bobby is too, I think.

At first I did not think there was anything wrong with being gay, because my mom and dad had made it clear that there was not and that they would love me whether I was gay or straight and that was all that mattered. But as I got older, they told me about the darker side of being gay. It was not all sunshine and rainbows, but there was bigotry and judgment too. It was then that I learned that being gay was something others would make fun of me for, so from then on I worked hard to act like the straight boys and fit in. But Bella was my best friend, so when I came out to my family, I told her too.

Bella and I spent a lot of time gossiping about Bobby. He had moved here with his parents and older brother two years ago, so I had not known him for very long. But Bobby's dad worked with Bella's dad at the police station, so she had all of the inside information on him. They went to police picnics together and they both got dragged along on their dad's fishing trips, so I knew Bobby hated fishing.

I also knew that Bobby had the most breathtaking dark brown eyes I have ever seen. He was an inch shorter than me, but he worked out with his older brother and he had a smoking hot body. The type of body I kept thinking about licking. And the best part was that I knew Bobby was gay too. We were not out of the closet, but we had flirted a few times and I thought I had made myself rather obvious. But he still pretended oblivion, so I was fairly certain that I would have to make the first move.

I was positive that Bobby was gay and it was not just the flirting that made me think this. I was interested in him, so I made it a point to watch Bobby as much as possible. One day, while doing a school project together, my hand brushed across his as I handed him the glue-stick. And since my eyes were always drawn to his crotch, my eye naturally wandered to the forbidden area, for what must have been the hundredth time that day. And what my eyes found was almost too good to be true: a bulge in his pants just for me. And Darwin was he big!

The only problem was that he did not seem to be getting my hints. Bella said that Bobby was not out of the closet, not even to his dad, and that she was not even convinced that he was gay. I could be wrong: maybe I did not see a tent in his pants and maybe he was not flirting with me. Maybe he liked girls and was interested in her. In fact, we had a bet going: if Bobby likes girls I owe Bella ten dollars. If he likes boys, she owes me.

But we needed some way to conclusively prove which was the case, and Bella had the perfect idea: a pool party. All I had to do was ask my mom to throw me a pool party for my birthday this year and she would do the rest and invite all of the kids from my class, including Bobby. Then, when both girls and boys are present and in their tight swimsuits, Bella and I will watch Bobby to see who turns him on.

The hard part was convincing Bobby to come, because my mom was a push over. Bobby had been to our house for a party before, back when Alice was first adopted, but I had come on a little too strong when I asked him to dance and he had failed to show up to any of our parties after that. But that was where Bella would come in: she would insist that she did not want to go alone, and that he was her best friend, so he had to go with her.

This plan did not really make sense, because she was dating my brother Russell, but Bella just made up a fake argument with Russell and told Bobby she needed him to come for emotional support. Bobby could not say no to Bella, so in the end he agreed, and that is how I found myself in our pool, wearing nothing but a pair of swim trunks, staring at Bobby's perfect abs. I was trying with all of my might not to let my eyes wander south to his swim trunks. I was failing miserably.

Emmett, Russell, Jasper, and the other kids were all in the deep end playing water polo, or at least that is what Alice said they were playing: from what I could see, it involved a large yellow ball and a net. It was just Bella, Bobby, Alice, and myself wading in the shallow end. Scrawny little Alice wanted to join the game just to be with Jasper, but my mom had told her no, because she was too small and Mom did not want her getting hurt. Alice was still small for her age, so she sat sadly staring at the older kids' game, wishing to join.

Bobby, Bella, and I, on the other hand, all hated sports. The best part about water polo, as far as I was concerned, was watching the boys in their Speedos. These boys were not even bothering to wear them. What a shame.

"I'm glad you could make it Bobby," I broke the ice. "This party's pretty lame with all the sports. It would've just been me and Bella not playing."

"Sure," Bobby replied shyly. I could tell he was nervous about being here and talking to me, because we did not know each other that well. Sure we were in the same class at school, and we both knew Bella, but ever since the flirting at Alice's party, he had been avoiding me.

"My mom's cutting up a watermelon for later and my dad's barbequing hamburgers. I'm starving." I tried to think of something else to say.

"I love watermelon. It's my favorite," he said beginning to relax.

"Mine too," I replied smiling at him, blushing slightly.

I must have been too busy blushing to notice the ball careening for my head, but, luckily for me, Alice had her eye on the ball. She dove over and jumped three feet in the air to catch the thing before it could hit me. She looked graceful in her catch, while I looked like a major wuss. Russell even called me a dorkess later that evening.

The moment Alice dived towards me and I noticed the ball coming right at me, I screamed like a little girl and instinctively fled in Bobby's direction. But we were already at the end of the pool, so I bumped into him with way too much force, and he had nowhere to flee with his back up against the wall.

"Sorry," I blushed sheepishly, trying to catch my breath, as Alice threw the ball back to Jasper. I heard Emmett and the older kids commenting on what a nice catch it was, and inviting her to play.

"It's okay," Bobby replied. He was clearly embarrassed about being so close to me.

"I guess that's the danger of having a new older brother: they'll cream you in the head when you're not looking," I said without backing away from him. He was clearly tenting his swim trunks and I was not going to do anything to ruin the moment, because I had ten dollars riding on this.

"Yeah, my older brother's always trying to get me to play with 'im. I get hurt all the time," he replied before catching the direction of my gaze and blushing.

"It's okay. Me too," I whispered before giving him a quick peck on the lips. His lips were soft and sweet and made me want to kiss them again, just like I had imagined.

"What…what're you talking about?" he stuttered recovering from the shock. I knew he liked it, but he was also confused.

"I like you too."

"But everyone'll see."

"No one's watching, except for Bella, and she won't tell. She's known about me forever and she never told anyone."

"But I'm not, you know?"

"Are you sure? Does that ever happen when Bella touches you?"

"Nn- no, but she's already taken and that doesn't mean I'm, you know." He would not even say the word.

"It's okay. The other kids are too absorbed in their game to notice."

"But what about your parents? What'll they say? They'll tell my dad," he replied with fear in his voice at the mention of his dad.

"My parents already know about me and they won't tell your dad if you don't want."

"Okay," he replied blushing. He still seemed uncomfortable, so instead of kissing him again, I took his hand in mine.

"Watermelon's ready sweetie," my mom announced, coming around the corner from the side lawn, before disappearing inside the house.

"I'm starving. Let's go," I announced to Bella and Bobby.

"No thanks. I hate watermelon," Bella dismissed us, and I looked over to see what she had been doing all this time. She was making goo-goo eyes with Russell, again. Those two were almost as bad as Alice and Jasper. Russell kept stealing glances at Bella in between playing, so I made a mental note to make sure to collect my ten dollars' worth of winnings from her later.

"Bobby? Would you care to join me?" I asked inching towards the stairs without letting go of his hand.

"Sure."

Bobby and I walked from the pool around to the side of the house where the watermelon was, hand in hand. We had a picnic table on that side, which was where my mom had left the watermelon. The barbeque for the hamburgers was smoking a little, but my dad was nowhere in sight and it was still too early for Dad to be cooking, so I figured Bobby and I would have some privacy here. I picked up two slices, and handed one to him. We ate our first slice in silence, but the second he let me feed to him.

Bobby bit into the juicy fruit and a dribble of juice ran down his chin. "Here, let me get that," I said wiping the juice with a napkin.

"Thanks," he replied embarrassed at the contact.

"What's wrong? No one's here to see. What're you so afraid of anyway?" I asked.

"Those boys go to our school. Next year we'll have junior high school classes with them, and then everyone'll know."

"Well, they're not here now," I countered.

"I'm afraid my dad might find out." When he said this I could tell that this was the real issue for him: what his dad would think. I did not know much about his dad, other than the fact that he worked at the police station and liked to fish, because I had never met the man.

"So what if he does," I said taking his face in my hands. I wanted to kiss his soft full lips gently and tenderly right then and there. I leaned in for the kiss, but Bobby pulled away. I could tell that he was not ready for that yet, and that if I tried to push him, he would run away from me, so I made up my mind to refrain from kissing him again. A very hard task indeed, given how good his lips looked, but I managed, barely.

"He'll react badly."

"How do you know that?" I asked, taking his hand, since I could not kiss him again.

"Because he always says bad stuff about my Uncle Lawrence. He's gay," he said, staring down at his shoes dejectedly. Well I guess it is a good thing his dad and I had never met and that he did not know that I was gay, otherwise he might not have let Bobby come over for the party. I made a mental note to act extra straight around him if we ever did meet.

"Listen to me," I said lifting his chin up so that I could see his eyes. "There's nothing wrong with being gay. My dad says it's perfectly fine to like boys. If your dad has a problem with it, then it's his problem, not yours. If you don't want to tell him, then he doesn't have to know. My parents are cool: they won't tell."

"Parents always talk behind our backs," he replied placing his hand over my own on his chin, and lacing the fingers of his other hand through my other hand. I took advantage of the hand contact, and led him over to a picnic blanket to sit down to finish our chat. We sat side by side, hand in hand.

"Not mine. Not if I ask them not to because your dad is a homophobe," I reassured him, and he cringed at the last word.

"But I'm scared."

"What else's there to be afraid of?" I asked.

"My dad says gay men have to have butt sex, and that it hurts, and it's disgusting, unnatural, and against God. He says my uncle's going to hell because he's gay," he quickly blurted out. My dad had told me that gay men typically have anal sex in the butt, but he had never mentioned it hurting. He said that it involved condoms and lots of lube. Maybe Bobby's dad did not know about the condoms and lube.

"Oh… my family isn't very religious. But, my dad says that if religions don't like gays, then all you've got to do is get The Gay Religious Patch. You keep your base religion, and the patch supersedes the base religion in one issue: homosexuality's allowed and homosexuals must marry other homosexuals of the same sex."

"That sounds cool. Where do I get a religious patch?" I could tell that he was beginning to open up to the possibility that being gay was not the end of the world.

"I'll ask my dad for a pamphlet for you."

"Cool. But…um…what about sex?" His voiced dropped to a whisper on this last part. Sex was definitely something he was scared of.

"I'm a virgin."

"Me too," he replied and I laughed. It was pretty obvious that he was a virgin.

"What I mean's that I'm not ready to change that, so I'm glad that you aren't ready either. We can be not ready together."

"You mean that?"

"Yes. I'm scared too."

"My mom says that two people need to get married first."

"Okay. Then we'll get married," I replied smiling and flirting with him, even though we both knew it was too soon to plan out the rest of our lives.

"But how can we? Gay marriage's illegal in this State."

"It's legal in Vermont. We can have a marriage on location. My dad'll pay: we've got lots of money."

"My dad'll flip."

"Then he's not invited to our fabulous gay wedding," I replied smiling at him and squeezing his hand. "It'll have lots of glitter and rainbows and flowers and I'll wear a beautiful white gown with a tiara."

"Then I'll wear the tux."

We continued to flirt like that the rest of the day, staying away from the group so that no one would find out about Bobby. When my dad came out and made burgers, we went to my room. I only saw Bella once more that day: she was holding Russell's hand while eating her hamburger, so I did not ask for my money until the next day. Next time one of my brothers asks me if he can date my best friend, I think I will refuse, because that was just gross.

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><p>Author's Note: So there is the flashback of Edward's POV of the big dance party and the big coming out scene. I know people like to make them full of drama, but I think that sometimes coming out isn't that big of deal and everyone is happy. When my half-brother and his wife found out their son was gay, the first thing they did was call up my mom and tell her they had good news, so that is how I'm envisioning Carlisle's reaction.<p> 


	29. Chapter 28

Warning: The following chapter contains the very first bit of lemon juice and it happens to be between Edward and Russell. So, if you're not cool with intersexed lemon juice, then this is where you navigate away from this story. If it is simply the concept of Russell and Edward together that bothers you, then just skip this chapter, and Russell and Edward will go back to Bella and Bobby next chapter.

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><p>Edward's POV:<p>

Two days after my birthday party I was planning on sleeping in, even though it was a Monday, because I was still out of school for the summer, but my dad knocked on my door at the butt-crack of dawn calling, "Get up Edward and meet me in my office for your shot."

I was about to turn over and go back to sleep until I remembered what shot he was talking about: my testosterone shots. So I jumped out of bed and went downstairs to my dad's office while still in my pajamas. Russell and Alice were already there in their pajamas, although they both had their eyes closed as they slumped on his couch.

Alice was two years younger than me and Dad had started giving her hormone shots right after she was adopted because she was so short. But she had Guevedoche, so she got a different type of hormone than the rest of us. It must have been working, because Alice had grown about a foot in the year and a half since she has been here.

Russell was two months older than me, so he started receiving his shots two months ago, on his twelfth birthday. He had an insensitivity to testosterone and needed extra to make him normal. He was really hoping that the shots would make his balls descend, but even if they did not, they were sure making him grow. Russell and I were the same height two months ago, but now he was a full three inches taller than me. Maybe I will start growing too now that I am getting the shots.

"I give the shots every Monday and Thursday mornings at seven a.m. before I go to work, so you need to set your alarm Tink," my dad said as he pulled out vials and syringes, while I took a seat in between my siblings.

Dad did Alice first and she said, "Ouch," and rubbed her arm a bit, but did not cry. "I normally go back to bed after this, but I'm gonna stick around and watch your first shot for moral support," Alice said, sitting back on the couch.

Russell went second and as soon he was done he said, "I'm gonna go take a shower," and left.

I was a bit nervous, so I held Alice's hand when Dad gave me my shot. It hurt really badly and afterwards my arm still felt dead where it had gone in. "How long is it gonna hurt?" I asked my dad.

"Oh a few hours maybe. You'll get used to it after a while. Russell doesn't seem to have any problems shaking it off anymore," he replied and Alice started snickering.

"What's so funny?" I asked Alice.

"I think stroking is more of the correct word," she replied.

"Alice! That's not a very ladylike thing to say. Just think about if your mother heard you talking like that," my dad scolded.

"What did she say?" I asked not understanding.

"Ask Russell to explain what he does in the shower: he's a boy," Dad answered as he packed up his stuff.

Alice and I walked out into the hall and out of earshot of Dad. "I still don't get it," I said as soon as we were alone.

"Go listen in on Russell's shower and maybe you'll figure it out. But I don't want to get in trouble again," she replied before skipping off to her room.

So I took Alice's advice and stopped outside the bathroom door to listen to Russell's shower. My room was the next door over, so if he came out, I figured I would just say I was checking to see if the bathroom was free because I had to pee. But I did not get a chance to spy long, because I heard Emmett's door opening, so I quickly resumed walking to my door.

"Morning Edward," Emmett greeted me. "Is Russell still in the shower then?"

"Yep. He just got in. We both just got our shots: my first one," I said indicating my Band-Aid.

"Cool. He normally takes a really long time, especially after getting his shot, so I'll just use the one downstairs: I have to whizz," he said walking passed me after glancing at my Band-Aid. So I went back into my room, resigned to let Russell's shower habits remain a mystery.

Thursday morning went the same way, with the three of us getting shots and Russell excusing himself to shower. But this time Alice started snickering when Russell said the word "shower," and Russell just gave her an annoyed look before leaving. Apparently they had some secret, but I decided not to push it, because Russell would tell me if it was important. We were brothers and we told each other everything.

Plus I was too distracted by the changes in my own body to care much: the shots were already making my puberty speed up. I had already been getting erections and the shots had not made me grow or sprout any hair, but my body felt funny: all tingly down there. I was really hoping that this was a sign that my penis was about to grow, but by the time Monday morning rolled around again, it was really starting to hurt down there.

Puberty was sort of an embarrassing topic of conversation, especially when talking to my parents, but Dad was very strict about having to tell him when something was wrong. So on Monday morning when my alarm went off and it still hurt and was tingly, I trudged downstairs determined to tell him. Luckily my decision was made easier by Alice deciding to leave right after her shot, so I was left alone with Dad and Russell. It was easier to talk with just boys around.

"Dad, is it supposed to feel weird down there after you give me the shots?" I asked while Dad was preparing Russell's shot.

"Depends what you mean by weird. It's normal for the shots to make you horny," he answered.

"They make my balls hurt," I admitted.

"Well I'll take a look after Russell's shot," Dad answered before sticking Russell with the needle. "Stick around Russell; I may need you to help your brother with something. Edward, remove your bottoms and get up on the exam table."

Dad had added an exam table to his office a few years back to make it easier for him to treat us at home. I liked it when he treated me on the couch better, but he said that that was not sanitary because it was harder to clean. When there was just me getting treatments it was fine, but now that there were five of us kids, he made us use the exam table.

"You have blue ball Tink," Dad announced after examining me. "Just take care of it in the shower like Russell and you'll be fine."

"Take care of what in the shower?" I asked confused. This was last week and Alice snickering all over again.

"Masturbation. If you don't do it in the shower, then it'll happen at night, which will mean extra laundry, so you might as well take care of it in the shower. Oh and I ordered some condoms your size just in case," Dad said handing me a brown paper bag before instructing me to pull my pants back up.

Then Dad gave me my shot and sent me upstairs with Russell saying, "Show him where to keep his lube Rus."

So Russell led me into the bathroom and pulled out a Sharpe from the drawer, before requesting, "Okay, hand me your bag."

I handed over my bag and Russell pulled out a bottle of lube and wrote my name on it. "Lube goes on this shelf here," he said placing my bottle next to a similar one labeled with his own name. "This's the boy's bathroom, so there isn't any danger of Mom bothering it."

"Why doesn't Emmett have one?" I asked. Jasper was younger so I was not expecting him to have this problem yet, but Emmett was the oldest; surely he would have been the first to get lube.

"He keeps his in his room. He doesn't get the shots so he doesn't have this problem as often as me. Just put your condoms in your room and put one in your backpack, that way if Mom and Dad ask you'll be prepared. I'll let you take the first shower today," he said turning to leave.

"What exactly am I supposed to do in the shower?" I asked.

"What Dad said: masturbate," he answered before leaving.

So I closed the door and got in the shower. I stood under the hot water for ten minutes staring at the bottle of lube, unsure of what I was supposed to do. I was pretty sure I was supposed to touch myself down there, but that just felt wrong, so eventually I decided to wash up and let Russell get his turn in the shower. And Emmett was also waiting, plus then Jasper would wake up, because all of us boys had rooms on the second floor and had to share this one bathroom. Alice was the only one with a room on the first floor and her own bathroom.

"How'd it go?" Russell asked me on his way to the shower as we passed in the hall. I was not really sure what to say, so I just blushed. "You go dog!" He must have thought I went through with it, because he continued on to the shower, while I went to lie down and think.

Was I really supposed to touch myself every time I got the shots? They covered masturbation in sex-ed at school, but they always made it seem so dirty and wrong. My teacher said we should wait until we were married and let our wives touch us to relieve the tension. Of course I replaced the word wives with husbands in my head when I imagined it, but still the point was that it was gross to do it to yourself. Dad said that if I did not do it in the shower, then it would happen while I was asleep. It would make me dirty, but at least I would not have to touch myself. Maybe I should try to go back to sleep right now: that might just solve my problem.

I lied down and tossed and turned, but no matter how I tried, I was already awake and too uncomfortable to get back to sleep. An hour later Mom called out that breakfast was ready, but I was in too much pain to be hungry, so I just stayed in bed.

Half an hour after that Russell opened my door saying, "You awake yet Tink? Mom left pancakes for you in the microwave to warm up when you're ready."

But instead of leaving and closing the door after that like he usually does, Russell sat down on my bed instead. "What's wrong Tink? If it still hurts you just need to do it again."

"I couldn't do it the first time," I admitted.

"Why not?"

"It just felt wrong. My teacher says that it's dirty."

"My teacher doesn't teach me that kind of stuff: just reading and math and stuff. But Dad teaches me about sex and he doesn't say it's dirty. He said our bodies're starting to make sperm now to prepare for when we grow up and that sperm needs to be released or it hurts, so go back in the shower and take care of yourself."

"I don't want to," I said grabbing my stuffed monkey to hold.

"Dad told me to make sure you did it and he already left for work. Do you want me to call him? He'll come home from work and make you do it. Or he'll make Mom drive you in to see him and you'll have to do it in the hospital," he warned.

"Fine," I caved, because both of those options sounded way worse than doing it myself. "I'll try again."

Russell and I went back to the bathroom and he said he was going to wait right outside the door to make sure I did it, but as soon as I was back in the shower I was not feeling it again. I tried touching myself a little, but it just felt weird. "It feels weird," I called loud enough for Russell to hear me on the other side of the door.

"Just keep going and it'll feel good in a minute," came his reply through the door.

"I can't do this: it's not working Rus," I complained. I was not even getting an erection without any stimulation. I had gotten erections a few times at school before and most recently at my birthday party with Bobby, but Bobby was not here.

"Just keep trying."

"I wish I had something to watch to help me," I said thinking about how much easier this would be if Bobby were here.

I was trying to picture Bobby naked in an effort to get hard, but it still was not working for me, when Russell opened the door. "You're taking too long Edward. Now I need another shower! Scoot over and I'll show you how."

"But Rus, we're brothers!" I complained, but scooted over so that he would not touch me because he appeared to be coming in whether I agreed or not: he was already stripping and was clearly sporting an erection.

"We're not related and you like boys, so this should help you. And I have no problem imaging Bella while we do this," he said stepping into the shower next to me, but keeping a few inches of separation at all times.

"Have you seen her naked already?" I asked surprised. As far as I was aware, their relationship consisted of kissing, but nothing else.

"No, but I saw her in that swimsuit last week. I owe you big time for asking for a pool party," he said reaching for his bottle of lube. "Now turn your back to the water so that it doesn't wash away your lube and lube up."

The shower was fairly big and it was wide enough for us both to face the rear wall without touching. I made sure that I was as far from Russell as possible before grabbing my lube and following his directions. At first I tried not to look at his penis, just sneaking glances to see how he was doing it, but then I noticed how hot he looked: it was a major turn on and I got an erection instantly. "See? It's working already," Russell said touching himself. "Now pull back the foreskin gently and add some more lube."

As Russell said this, he pulled his own foreskin forward again to demonstrate the procedure, but he was so big and swollen that it would not go all the way back up and the tip was sticking out. I looked down at my own penis and despite my small size, my ugly tip was peeking out too, so I pulled the skin back and added more lube like he said.

"Your beans're really huge Edward," Russell commented as I looked up to see him looking at me.

"They just look big next to the small penis. And don't go telling me that they're the biggest in the family, because none of the rest of you has any."

"That's not true: Emmett's got the one. And mine're coming in already. Want to see?"

"Not if it means looking at your vagina."

"Fine, but I'm gonna make you look once they're all the way in. Now concentrate and stroke yourself so we can finish," he said as he moved his hand up and down.

I tried to copy him, but I had a lot less to work with. "What're you thinking about when you do that?" I wondered.

"Bella naked. I've seen pictures of naked girls, so I'm imagining what she'll look like when we finally have sex. Then I think about how warm and soft it'll feel, but you can think about the same thing with Bobby," he supplied.

I watched Russell masturbate and tried to pretend I was watching Bobby. I was pretty sure Bobby was not as big as my brother, because Russell was huge, but it was not too hard to keep my eyes trained on him from the waist down and replace his face with Bobby's in my mind. And after only a minute of doing that, I was spraying the shower wall with my stuff.

"Wash it off and give it a minute before doing it again: your beans're still blue," he replied.

I did as he said and was enjoying the warm spray of the shower as I watched Russell still touching himself. "Why's it taking you so long?" I asked. He had started before me so he should have finished first.

"You came really fast. Probably because you needed it really badly. I just came this morning, so it's gonna take me longer to finish this time, plus the talking is distracting me. I'm sure your next time will take longer too."

While I watched, I noticed that he sometimes flicked his head on the upstroke. Watching Russell made me hard again, so I took myself back into my hands. I pulled back the skin again and added more lube, before repeating the entire process. I was just getting into it when Russell moaned and sprayed the shower wall with his own stuff.

Russell rinsed himself and the wall off before saying, "Okay, I'm out. Just keep doing that until your beans're no longer blue and don't hurt anymore. And after you finish, spray down that wall with this disinfecting spray." He pulled out a spray cleaner from under the sink and left it on the counter, before grabbing his towel and leaving.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember what Russell looked like while I touched myself. It took another ten minutes, but eventually I felt the tingling in my spine that meant I was almost there and sped up. This time I cried out, because it just felt so good. The first one had been quick and relieving a pain, but this one felt good and lasted a lot longer and my balls fully emptied.

I must have shot off about ten streams before it finally stopped. I was so tired that I leaned against the side wall and caught my breath: I do not think I will ever lean against that rear wall again, because I could just imagine how much white stuff had already been sprayed on and washed off of that wall. And with four boys sharing this shower, that wall was destined to suffer much more abuse of a similar nature in the near future.

And even though Russell showered with me that one time, he never did so again. I figured that it was just a onetime deal, because he liked girls, not boys. And so I continued to think of him as just my brother, while I concentrated on pursuing a relationship with someone who could return my affections: Bobby.

Thus my new routine developed, consisting of hormone shots twice a week and masturbation in the shower. Within the first months of the shots I grew an inch, both in height and in length. Dad said that if I continued at this rate my penis might just be within the normal range. I would never have six inches, but I might have five to work with. And five was nothing to be embarrassed about. Given that I had two inches last month, five was sounding pretty sweet. Even three was something.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: So someone has been corrupted our sweet little Russell, because he was a lot more innocent last time we heard from him. Any guesses who?<p> 


	30. Chapter 29

Edward's POV:

That summer past quickly and before I knew it the summer was almost over and we were preparing to go back to school. The main reason why time went by so fast was because Bella came over every day and Bobby practically started living with us. Bella's dad worked, so my mom was watching her for him, because Mom worked at home and the noise did not bother her. Mom told me once that she enjoyed hearing the sounds of children from the living room while she worked, but we all tried to keep it down for her anyway. Mostly we all went outside, with Emmett supervising, and played.

Bella's dad was the boss down at the police station and Bella's mom was gone, so he got the normal cop hours during the school year and he only worked half-days during the summer, so he could spend more time with her. There were only three other cops, including Bobby's dad, so they had to work all of the hours Bella's dad did not. The police station always had a cop there, in case of emergency, so that meant that Bobby's dad was always working and never came home.

Bobby liked playing with me and Bella, but mostly I think he did not like being at his own house. His older brother was nice and looked out for him, but his dad was weird and really mean. I actually had only met his dad twice, because his mom always dropped him off, so I did not really know him, but still I could tell. Bobby never wanted to talk about him and would get upset when his mom would call and say that he needed to come home early that day, because his dad was getting off of work at a reasonable time. So I was pretty sure the dad was mean, although he was hardly ever around.

My dad worked a lot, but unlike Bobby, I get excited when he comes home early to spend more time with us. I like going places with just me and my dad, while Bobby acts like it is a death sentence. He absolutely hates going down to the police station to visit his dad, but I like going with my dad to work and learning about being a doctor. Okay sure there was the boring part about sitting with old people, but I never pretended to be allergic to them or started sneezing, like Jasper, Russell, and Alice did. In fact, I would go to work with Dad more if he would let me, which was why I asked to go with him today.

Dad was always busy, but he always tried to come home in time for dinner. Emmett and me would help mom cook, while the others played video games. And then Dad would come home and we would all sit down together and tell each other about our days and Dad would tell us about work. He would tell us about all the accidents that happened and who was sick and who was getting better. Most importantly, he would tell us his schedule, so that we would know when he would be home and when he would not be too busy, so that me and Emmett could go in and sit with old people and I could work on my bedside manner.

Today Dad and I were not going in to his hospital to take care of old people though. "You're sure you want to go with me to the seminar in Seattle Tink? It's a really long drive and it's gonna be really boring," Dad said when he got home and found me waiting by the door ready to go. He was giving me one last chance to back out.

"Yeah, I wanna go."

"Do you have your book and your bag of toys?" he asked and I nodded. "Okay, get in the car and I'll get the snacks from Mom."

I grabbed my backpack just as Mom came out of the kitchen with the small cooler of snacks. She kissed us both and then we were on our way to Seattle. Dad went to these seminars in Seattle once a month and he said that they were like classes, where one doctor told the other doctors about whatever the latest thing that they had learned. He also said that they were really boring and filled with lots of big words and doctors speak, but I had already made up my mind that I wanted to go. I was set on going from the moment Dad said he was going to a seminar on hypospadias, when we were all gathered around the dining room table for dinner Monday night.

Not only did I love my dad and want to spend more time with him, but I have a hypospadias. I wanted to go so that I could learn more about being a doctor, but I really wanted to find out about the latest research on my condition. All of my brothers had a genetic reason for what was wrong with them and I wanted a reason for what was wrong with me too. Sure I knew the words micropenis and hypospadias, everyone in my family did, but Dad did not know why I was born with my birth defects.

I asked Dad once when I was little why I was born like this and I'll never forget what he said. "Well Tink, we just don't know what causes every medical issue. Maybe someday we'll know more, but right now all they know is that there seems to be a link to hormone deficiency." I kept thinking about the fact that someday, in the future, we would know what was wrong with me, which was why I wanted to go to the seminar.

I knew that I had a hormone deficiency, just like Alice and Russell, but I did not know why. Alice needed a different type of hormone, but Russell and I were getting the exact same testosterone shots. Russell had something called PAIS that was caused by a mutated gene that runs in his family; he had a cause behind why he was different and I did not. All I had was the cure, which was the shots.

The shots hurt and it was really annoying to wake up early twice a week, but they made me grow. My blood tests used to show that I was low on testosterone, but now with the shots, Dad said I was in the normal range, which was important for growing. I grew half a foot over the summer, so I was the same height as Russell again. Maybe I would even be taller than him when we grow up, because he was already slowing down and I was still growing a lot.

"Bobby's Mom called me when I was at the hospital today," Dad said, interrupting my thoughts. We had been listening to the radio as we drove, but now I noticed that he had turned it off.

"Yeah?" I asked, kind of excited and nervous at the same time about what she wanted.

"She invited you to go to their church with them Sunday and then go to their house afterwards for lunch and get to know Bobby's family better."

"Oh." I knew that Bobby's Mom kept asking my mom if I could go with them on Sundays, but Mom and Dad had already talked with me about this before.

"I told her no again. I'm sorry Tink, but I don't think it's safe over there at their house. I know Charlie said he checked Robert out, but I don't trust him, not with my son. If you and Bobby want to play, you can do it at our house," he said, but I had heard it all before, which was why Bobby did always come over to our house and not the other way around. I had never been to Bobby's house.

"I know Dad. I don't want to go to church anyways. Bobby keeps telling me it's fun, but Emmett told me it's really boring and he showed me a TV show of church. I don't think the loud guy was even speaking English."

I had been to church before, but that was back before my first Mom and Dad died. I was really little and now I could not remember it, but that television show Emmett had shown me was really awful. Watching C-SPAN with Mom was better than watching that show with the loud yelling guy. I never did find out what he was yelling about, because Emmett just said, "You don't want to know," when I asked him.

"I told Emmett not to watch that show around you kids. It's one thing if he wants to watch it, but I don't want the rest of you being influenced by that nonsense," Dad said.

Oh that was right, Emmett had told me not to tell Dad he was letting me watch that show. Opps. "How's Alice?" I asked, changing the subject, because I did not want to get Emmett into any more trouble.

Alice had had a really big seizure two nights ago and was still at the hospital. Normally her seizures were cool, because that was when she could see the future clearest, but this time she had not even seen anything. She just fell to the floor and started shaking and did not stop until Jasper came running into the room and held her. Mom had gone for the lorazepam, Alice's medication, but Jasper got to Alice first and the seizing had stop by the time Mom got there.

We had all stopped everything to go with Mom to take Alice to the hospital. This was the fourth time Alice had had a really big seizure since we got her, so we all knew the procedure by now. She would go into the hospital and get checked over and even get her meds increased. But she would be fine and they would release her in a day or two and she would come home and her meds would go back to normal. Mom would baby her for a few days and then everything would be the same as before the seizure hit.

Mom had told me this morning that Alice was being released today, so I knew she was better. That was where Dad had been all morning: checking on Alice and making sure she was still okay, because he could not make the trip out to Seattle with me if Alice was still sick. But Alice was fine and Dad had called Mom from the hospital letting her know that both the trip to Seattle and Alice's homecoming were still on for today.

The drive was three hours there and three hours back, plus two hours of seminar in between, so we will get home around six, which should be just in time to help bring Alice home from the hospital. When Dad called this morning, he told Mom that Alice would probably be ready to be released by seven tonight. So I was fairly certain that this was not a loaded question when I asked it, but would have the desired effect of changing the topic of conversation.

"She's doing better. No more seizures, so I think the medication has it under control again."

"Why didn't we bring her home this morning? I know she hates hospitals. She's allergic."

"She's not allergic, that's only Jasper and Russell who pretend. She was still very tired this morning. She was still sleeping when I went to check on her, but Dr. Long said that she had been awake earlier, around six." Dr. Long was Alice's doctor, because he specialized in things like epilepsy.

"And?"

"And she was still very groggy, because it was six in the morning and she was being poked and prodded for tests all day yesterday. The tests were all back to normal levels, so she can go home as soon as she gets some rest. Mom is going in to check on her. We'll call when we get to Seattle to check on her again."

"How was Jasper?" I asked. Jasper had gone to the hospital with the rest of us, but he had refused to leave Alice's side.

"Not sneezing at all," Dad replied with a grin lighting up his face. "He's tired too. He was up when I was there, but I could see how tired he was from staying up all night worrying about her two nights ago, so I told him to lie back down. He was asleep almost instantly."  
>"Cool. Can we eat Mom's sandwiches in the car?" I asked, reaching for the cooler.<p>

"Sure Tink. Hand me a juice too, please."

Dad and I spent the rest of the three hour drive eating, drinking, and listening to the radio. It was a really long drive. I know Dad had said it would be long, but I had brushed his warnings off because I had made this trip before, back when we adopted Alice. Somehow I must have forgotten how long and boring a drive to Seattle was, because looking back all I remembered was playing with Russell the whole way. I wished Russell was here now, because this drive could not possibly be so boring if he was with me.

Just when I thought I was going to die of boredom, I started watching the cars on the freeway pass going the other way on the opposite side of the road. Then I started feeling car sick from all of the cars whizzing past. And right when I thought I was going to hurl if we had to go any further, Dad started merging right, a clear sign that we were almost there.

"You okay Tink? You look a little pale," Dad said glancing over at me while the car slowed to make the off ramp.

"I'm getting a little car sick," I admitted and as soon as the words were out of my mouth Dad was rolling down my window and turning off the air conditioner.

It felt nice to have the fresh air on my face and we were stopped at the light at the end of the ramp for about five minutes, so I started feeling better. "Get another juice out of the bag Mom packed, but sip it slowly," Dad instructed as the light turned. "There's a parking lot up here I can pull into, if you need to stop."

I still had my juice from earlier, so I pulled it out of the cup holder and took a sip, while I thought about whether or not I wanted my dad to pull over. On the one hand, I was still a little bit queasy, but on the other I did not want him to have to stop for me, which was why I had not drank all of my juice earlier: I did not want to have to pee and make him pull over to find a bathroom. I wanted Dad to think I was a grown kid and that he could take me places like this.

I glanced at my watch and that settled it: we only had fifteen minutes left before the seminar starts and there was no way we would make it if we stopped. Plus Dad had said he wanted to call Mom about Alice before it started. "I'm fine, keep going Dad," I said, taking another sip of the juice.

Dad nodded and it turned out that we were closer than I thought, because it was only another five minutes before we were pulling up to a hospital I did not recognize. Dad called Mom while pulling into a large parking garage and looking for a spot to park. "Are you nervous about something Tink?" Dad asked me when he hung up with Mom.

"Um, yeah," I replied, grabbing my backpack and putting my juice in the side pocket mesh.

"What about Tink?" He was pulling out his briefcase, but when he said my name he stopped and looked up at me.

"Well this is my first seminar and I really want to be a doctor."

"Don't worry, they're gonna love you. Just stay by me and keep quiet and still during the presentation, and you'll be fine. You have your book and your toys in case you get bored, right? Your Barbies?"

"Dad, I don't really play with toys anymore. Barbies aren't cool in the seventh grade."

"Oh, yes. Sorry, I forgot you grew up overnight. Do you have your ipod and your DS?"

"Yeah Dad, I got them. I even have my book."

I was not planning on reading the book, because it was the one he had picked out for me, but I was not about to tell him that. Dad always picked out really boring nonfiction books about dealing with being different or gay, or living with mild birth defects; either that or really scary fiction books starring gay boys with lots of problems. Sometimes the gay boys got the boy and lived happily ever after, but most of the time Jasper would just tell me enough of the plot to convince Dad that I had read it. Jasper was kind enough to screen the books for me, because he loved to read, so I would only actually read them if he said it was a happy book. He had said this book was not a happy one, so I was not going to read it.

"Good. Is there anything else you want to know about the seminar before we go in?"

"Yeah, what about hypospadias are they gonna be talking about again?" I asked. He had told me before and I knew it was something to do with genetics, but there were a lot of really big words involved.

"Dr. Pask works on trying to find a link between hypospadias and specific genes. He took DNA from a bunch of boys like you and looked to see if they had anything in common. Right now they know the condition can be caused by a number of different genes, but they haven't found all of those genes yet. Dr. Pask is going to tell us about his most recent findings with regards to finding a new gene."

"So they already know some of the genes? Did you test me for them?"

"Yes Tink, I already tested you for all of the known genes and you tested normal. Mostly they only know about the genes that cause the really severe forms of your condition, which are the same genes that cause all kinds of other problems down there, like with Jasper, Russell, and Alice. They don't know much about the mild forms of the condition."

"But Jasper and Russell don't have hypospadias."

"No, but Alice does. Remember how I said that not all conditions manifest the same way?" he asked and I nodded. "Jasper and Russell have mutations that predispose them to the risk of having severe hypospadias, as well as other problems. They have the other problems, but they happened to not get the hypospadias."

"Okay, I think I got it. I just have one more question."

"Okay, shoot."

"Do these doctors know that I have a hypospadias?"

"They know that I have two children that do, but they do not know which two. They also know that I have a wonderful son named Edward who wants to grow up and be a doctor. I talk about you all of the time."

"Okay, I think I can live with that."

"Good, because we need to get going," Dad said opening his car door.

I followed Dad into the hospital and to a big classroom full of doctors. There was a table filled with fruit, vegetable, and cookie trays, so Dad let me get a plate while he talked to the other doctors. I stayed by him and munched on some carrots and pineapple and nodded when he introduced me. Then we went inside and listened to the most boring presentation I had ever heard. I tried really hard to pay attention, but the doctor guy just kept using abbreviations and really big words that I did not know. By the end of it I was bored and frustrated that I had not understood it.

But Dad and I had a three hour car ride back home, so I waited until we were on the freeway again and asked, "So what did Dr. Pask find out?"

"He made mice with the mutation he wanted to look at in the gene he thought was involved. But the mice were so sick that they died. And not only did they die, but their penises were fine, so the new gene he was looking at was actually not involved in hypospadias formation. Now he thinks that the problem is the same old genes we already know about."

"But you said you already tested me for all of them."

"I did. I sent your blood to a lab where they sequenced the part of your DNA with those genes and they were all fine. But Tink, there is more to it than protein making genes. They only sequenced the part of the genes that make the proteins, but now Dr. Pask thinks that the mild defects are not caused by defects in the proteins, but by where and when and how much the proteins are made. The protein could be fine, but if the DNA that tells the cells to make it has a problem, then the cells don't make enough of it. He found evidence that the DNA that controls the making of the protein is mutated."

"That sounds really bad."

"Well the cells are still making some of the right protein, just not enough of it. The protein makes the hormones, so there are enough hormone molecules to make boys into boys, but not enough to finish the job. That's why these cases would be mild and also why they can be treated with testosterone."

"Okay, I think I get it now. What are the types of genes we already know about again?"

"Well first there is the protein that makes testosterone from its precursor. You tested normal for this gene, but after today I'm more convinced than ever that your problem is somehow related to this first protein, because your blood work always shows low levels of testosterone. Then there is the receptor that senses the testosterone, and that is the one Russell has mutated. He has the normal amount of testosterone, but if he can't sense it, it is like he doesn't have enough. Both these first two are treated with testosterone shots.

"Then there is a protein that converts testosterone into another boy hormone, dihydrotestosterone, and that is the protein Alice has mutated, which is why she has to have the other hormone. And finally there is the receptor protein for this other hormone, but mutating that just gives the same effect as mutating the last protein and it can also be treated by adding extra hormone. I think that this is the one Jasper has mutated, but the test for it isn't very good yet and his test came back negative. But then he also tested negative for the one Alice has and he has all of the same symptoms, except his dihydrotestosterone levels were normal, so it has to be that receptor that is the problem.

"And those are the only four we know about, Tink."

"Okay. So if one of the four tests doesn't always work, then I could have that problem too?"

"I don't think so. Your symptoms fit better with something on the testosterone side, not the dihydrotestosterone side. If you did have Jasper's problem, the testosterone shots wouldn't be making you grow like they are."

"Oh," I said.

We were both silent for several minutes while I thought about this, before I asked another question. "But what was that doctor saying about brain development Dad?"

"He doesn't really work on that, but he was suggesting that neurologists and neurobiologist, doctors and scientists that work with brains, ought to look into how hormone levels affect brain development. They already look at that, but he was saying he thought they should look specifically at how these mutations in the amount of hormone made affect the brain."

"Does that mean he thinks boys with that mutation are stupid?" I asked worrying about the possibility that I might have the mutation and be stupid. Stupid people could not be doctors, so that would ruin my plans.

"No, more like the link between hormone level and gender identity. Like how Alice wants to be a girl, but her chromosomes say that she is a boy."

"So did a lot of the boys in his study want to be girls then?" I asked, relieved that they were not suggesting that I was stupid.

"More than average. Last month the speaker was talking about a link between hormone disorders and homosexuality, so I think he was trying to link his talk with that one."

"What's that mean?" I asked confused. I knew what hormone disorders and homosexuality meant, but he had not told me about a link before.

"Well there are more cases of gender identity switching in intersexed children, but we expect that is because the gender is not always correctly assigned in these cases. And even if it is correct biologically, the brain isn't always assigned the matching gender. We think there is a link between the decreased hormone levels we see and gender assignment in the brain.

"The doctor last month was looking at it the other way around: he was looking at boys who were not diagnosed as intersexed and did not appear to have any birth defects, but were gay. Then he measured their hormone levels to see if the gay boys have low hormone levels. His findings were inconclusive, because some of the boys had low hormone levels, but most of them were in the normal range. That means he needs to do the study again and see if he gets the same results."

"So…the doctor today was saying what exactly?"

"Just that we should follow up with previous boys who are now grown up and see if they turned out to be gay or straight. He thinks that there are more gay boys than average in the intersexed group, but the boys he looked at are still too young to really tell."

"I don't think I heard him say all that…"

"He used a lot of abbreviations and medical jargon, but that was what it translated to. Let that be a lesson to you Tink: when you grow up and are a famous doctor and need to give a speech, don't use abbreviations and jargon. Just spell out what you want to say in plain English, so that everyone can understand what you're saying," Dad said and I nodded. He really should not be one to talk, because he was always using big words.

I had a lot to think about after that so we spent the next hour of the car ride home in silence. Then I decided that it did not really matter, because I was who I was and these studies were not going to change that. But then there we were still at least an hour away from home, because we had not even made it to Port Angeles yet, and I knew that that was an hour away. So I gave in and pulled out the sad book about the gay boy and started to read.

The book was just getting good when we finally made it to Dad's hospital and we were just in time to meet Mom and my brothers there to take Alice home. And then we had one more day left as a family before school started and summer vacation was over.


	31. Chapter 30

Edward's POV:

After that summer, Bobby and I were inseparable and best friends. But we were more than that and when I asked him to go steady, he said yes! Plus, he finally let me kiss him again, just not in public: no one outside of the family knew that we were together. Everyone thought that we were just friends, because that was how Bobby wanted it.

Bobby still had not told his dad or anyone else that he was gay, but I still was not out at school either, so it did not really bother me. And even I was scared straight around his dad, that man was so homophobic. What did bother me was the lack of sex. I was twelve and a half, almost thirteen, and Bobby's thirteenth birthday was coming up, but we were still a couple of complete virgins.

And when I say we were complete virgins, I mean I had not even seen him naked or anything. Russell had already seen his girlfriend Bella naked and she even went to second base with him; all of the time. Bobby was not even down for second base, only making out. The most Bobby and I had ever done was when he let me dry hump him while we watched a movie, but he was not expecting me to come that easily or he would have backed off before I finished.

Maybe being a virgin would not be so bad if Bobby would at least go down on me, but noooo, his mom said oral sex was for the devil, and not for horny gay teenage boys. Maybe she did not know about the gay part, but the intent was clear. Bobby and I had never even felt each other up and being his boyfriend was starting to make me feel like a martyr. The boy would not even exchange handjobs for Darwin's sake! There had to be a law against refusing to share handjobs with your boyfriend. Bella gave them to Russell all the time. I know, because they both told me about it. Bella may be my best friend, but she could sure give a gay way too much detail sometimes.

I was really hoping to get a handjob from Bobby for his birthday. We were out of school for Spring Break, so he came over to my house bright and early. We packed a picnic and then told my mom that we were going for a hike in the woods and would be back later this afternoon. I grabbed new backpack loaded with supplies and Bobby grabbed the picnic basket and we were off.

We hiked along the trail for about an hour before I led him away from the trail towards a little meadow my brothers and I had come across while jogging. I loved to jog so I would get one of my brothers to go with me almost every day. Sometimes we would all go, including my mom and dad, and make a family event out of it. We would pack a big picnic lunch and come out to this meadow to enjoy a rare bit of sunshine.

The sun was shining for Bobby's birthday and we could see it when we stepped through the last of the trees and out into the meadow. "Here," I said handing Bobby a bottle of water from my backpack and opening up a second one for myself.

"Thanks," he replied and took the bottle.

We sat down in the sun and drank, just relaxing after the long hike. An awkward silence started to develop while I thought about what we were going to do in this meadow. This was not just my boyfriend's birthday, but our one six month anniversary of when we started going out: It was March now and we had agreed to go steady back in October.

We had both agreed that we would take our relationship to the next level today; not just kissing, but nudity and maybe even touching. I was really hoping that he might agree to exchange handjobs, but I knew he was thinking more on the lines of mutual masturbation and touching each other above the waist. But still, it would be better than what I had been getting from him.

"So what do you want for our anniversary?" he asked me, breaking the ice.

"You," I replied leaning in for a kiss. "I was hoping you'd let me see you naked today; maybe even let me touch you."

"I'm not sure about the touching," he replied pulling at my shirt.

"What if I promise I don't want any touching from you? I really just want to feel you in my hands and if you're not ready to touch me for another year, that'll be alright with me. Let me give you a birthday present," I replied, pulling off his shirt. We had seen each other's bare chests before, but never touched. "Can I touch your chest?"

"No," he replied and then suddenly pulled me close to him, crashing his naked chest against mine. His skin felt so good against mine that I forgot that I was nervous and got hard. "I wanna touch yours first."

"You can do anything you want to me," I replied when Bobby pulled away and trailed his fingertips down my chest. Then I leaned in to capture his lips in a sensual kiss.

"Are you sure you don't mind touching me when I'm not ready to touch you?"

"Of course not. Let me take care of you," I pleaded as he tweaked my nipple.

"Okay, you can touch me now," he replied leaving my nipple and lying back on the ground with his hands behind his head.

"How much of you?" I asked and leaned in to touch his chest.

"All of me," he moaned as a pinched his nipple.

I did not have to be told twice: I quickly unzipped his pants and pulled them down to his thighs, before doing the same with his boxers. He helped me by lifting up his hips, but let his clothing rest around his knees. "Wow! You're so big!" I said as I stared at his erection. He was way bigger than me.

"I think I'm average. Maybe a little bigger than some…" he replied smiling at my compliment.

I dug in my backpack and pulled out a fresh bottle of lube asking, "Are you sure this's alright?"

He nodded, so I poured a few drops of lube into my hands before reaching out to touch him. He gasped when I made contact. I was enjoying the warm slick sensation of having him in my hand, trying not to rush and I taking my time. This was my first time giving a handjob and I wanted it to be perfect.

But before I knew it, Bobby was moaning and writhing under me begging, "Faster - please – Edward- you feel so good!"

I picked up the pace and was fascinated when I watched his face through his orgasm. His facial features scrunched up like he was concentrating on something really hard and his face turned red as he exploded all over my hand. I grabbed some baby wipes from my bag and began to wipe up his mess, while he just laid there panting and out of breath.

"That was so good Edward. Now I want to watch you do that to yourself," he said and I disposed of the last of the baby wipes by placing them in a Ziploc bag.

"Okay," I replied while I put the Ziploc in my backpack and pulled out some hand sanitizer. My dad was very clear on safe sex practices, so I was trying to be as safe as possible.

"Pull down your pants," Bobby instructed.

"Okay," I agreed before pulling them down. I pulled my briefs down after that and took my erection into my hand. I was already leaking precum, so I did not need the lubricant.

"You're really tiny," Bobby said as he stared at me with wide eyes.

"I'm still growing and I just look small in comparison to you because you're hung like a horse," I replied. My mom had told me to say that if anyone ever complained about my size. We could talk about anything and she knew it bothered me that everyone else was bigger than me down there.

"Maybe. And maybe it just looks small on top of those massive balls," he said causing me to blush. "But why does your head look funny?" he asked me.

"That's just my foreskin," I replied pulling it back.

"Ew! What's wrong with your head man?" he asked sitting up to get a closer look.

"Nothing," I lied.

"You have two holes, but the normal one looks all white and covered up. Is it infected?"

"No. That's just how I was born: it's a birth defect."

"It looks gross," he replied rudely.

"Well this's the way I was born," I defended, losing my erection.

"Look, I'm sorry for ruining our anniversary. I just need some time. Why don't we get dressed and head back to your place?" he suggested pulling his pants back up.

The mood was already ruined, so I pulled my pants back up too before picking my shirt up off the ground. I packed everything back into my backpack before we headed back to my house, without even eating the picnic lunch because it was not even lunch time: it was only ten in the morning. That right there was my first clue that something was really wrong. Even if he was weirded out, he should have agreed to stay for a few hours and talk before eating with me as long as our clothes were back on.

My second clue that things with Bobby were never going to be the same was that he would not talk to me on the way back. I tried to change the subject and asked him about going to the movies this Saturday with Bella and Russell, but he just shrugged. I tried to talk to him to let him know that I was not mad at him for over reacting. I told him that we could go back to my house and play video games, but he just shrugged again.

It was not until we reached my house that he spoke. "I wanna go home now," he said.

"Why? You just got here."

"I want to break up. I think this's a sign from God that we aren't meant to be gay. It's wrong and that's why he gave you that messed up penis."

"Your God didn't give me anything! I was born with a birth defect and modern medicine has made it mostly better. It's not even a big deal!" I exclaimed starting to cry.

My mom must have heard me, because she came out of the house and asked, "What's going on boys?"

"I'm breaking up with Edward and I'd like to go home now. May I please use your phone to call my mother?" Bobby asked politely. At least I think he was polite; I was too busy crying still to pay attention to what he said.

My mom nodded to Bobby, but enveloped me in a hug. "What happened Tink? Did he hurt you?"

"No."

"What did he do?"

"I let him see me naked."

"Okay, but why are you so upset honey?"

"He said that it was gross and his god gave it to me for being gay," I sobbed into my mother's embrace.

"Don't you believe him for a minute, Tink. Your penis isn't gross and there is nothing wrong with being gay. Let's go inside and make you some ice cream," she said pulling back from our hug and leading me inside by the hand.

Bobby stayed in our living room by himself until his mother came and got him. When Mrs. Jorgen did show up, my mom went to greet her and gave her a taste of her mind.

"I don't know what you've been teaching your boy, but you should be very ashamed of him today. My Edward has a very tiny birth defect; your son saw it today and overreacted. He told Edward that they couldn't be friends over it. Bobby is no longer welcome at our house and I would appreciate it if he didn't tell the other children about Edward's birth defect," I heard my mom tell Mrs. Jorgen.

"Bobby! Is this true? Get in the car: you're grounded. I'm so sorry Mrs. Cullen. I'll make sure he doesn't repeat it and I'll have a talk with him when we get home," I heard Mrs. Jorgen reply.

And then they were gone and my siblings all came into the living room wondering what happened. Mom explained what Bobby had done, so that I did not have to. Emmett was the first to respond saying, "Well then good riddens! He's not good enough for my little brother anyway."

"Yeah, if he doesn't like you, then it's his problem, not yours," Jasper added in.

"I think your penis looks fine," Russell replied.

"He wasn't the one for you anyway," Alice stated knowingly. I wonder who she thought was the right one for me?

After that they all hugged me and tried to make me feel better.


	32. Chapter 31

Russell's POV:

For my thirteenth birthday I did not ask for a party. I never asked for a party, because I always asked to spend the day with Lily and Daisy instead. Their new mom did not like driving to Forks, even though it was only a twenty minute drive, so I would not get to see my sisters if I asked for a party. But at least Mrs. Markes let me spend the night once a year for my birthday.

Mom dropped me off at the Markeses house this morning and we had spent the day playing together. Lily, Daisy, and the Markes boys had all gotten squirt guns for Lily's twelfth birthday two months ago and my parents had just given me a new one this morning for my birthday, so we ran around trying to squirt each other until we were all soaking wet and freezing cold before we went back inside the house.

We changed into clean, dry clothes, and then sat down to dinner. Mrs. Markes made chicken and there was even a little cake for dessert. They lit candles and sang and I made a wish. Then we went into the living room and played video games. This birthday was turning out to be better than last year.

Last year I had also spent the day with the Markeses, so that I could be with Lily and Daisy. But last year my birthday fell on the Sunday before Spring Break started and the Markeses had decided to go camping that weekend. We spent three days and two nights camped out in the forest. I liked camping with my family, but when I went with my family, Jasper, Emmett, Dad and I would go hunting most of the time. The Markeses did not let me bring a gun and none of them knew how to hunt. Without the hunting, camping was pretty boring; at least I had Lily and Daisy there.

The worst part about camping with the Markeses was that all six of us kids had to share one tent. Mr. and Mrs. Markes had a tent to themselves, but the rest of us were crammed into a tent meant for four. My sleeping bag was sandwiched between Lily, Steven, and Scott's. Scott was the middle Markes boy and was the same age as me, while Steven was the oldest and was two years older. Steven was the tallest, so his sleeping bag was laid out long-ways, while the rest of us had ours laid out short-ways, with Daisy and Sean's sleeping bags on the other side of Lily. Sean was the youngest boy and was two years younger than me.

Part of what made the cramped sleeping quarters so unbearable was the fact that Mrs. Markes had made hotdogs and baked beans for dinner. Scott had major gas and his rear end was right by my nose. But worse than the smell was the dream I had that night. Dad had just started giving me my testosterone shots the previous Monday and I had never had a wet dream before. I woke up scared, confused, sticky, and surrounded by other kids.

Luckily Daisy, Lily, Scott, and Sean were still asleep and did not notice my embarrassing situation. Steven was the only one who woke up and he took me down to the river and helped me wash up in the middle of the night. The water was freezing cold and there was a chilly breeze, and I think I would have died of hypothermia that night if Steven had not of had the forethought to bring a towel and a change of clothing. He gave me his spare pair of pajamas, which he told me he always brought with him in case he was caught in a similar situation.

Being clean and dry again made me feel a little better, but mostly it was Steven who made me feel better. He washed out my clothes in the river, so that no one would find out what had happened. And he told me an embarrassing story about when this had happened to him when he was spending the night at his friend Kyle's house. He told me that it happened to everyone eventually and it was nice to know that I was not alone. After a few hours staying up talking to Steven I got sleepy again and we climbed back into the tent without anyone ever finding out what had happened.

After that camping trip Steven and I were pretty close friends and he even let me sleep in his room when I stayed over. I used to sleep in Scott and Sean's room, but Sean was little and annoying and Scott had the hots for my sister. Sean was always making stupid jokes about butts and farting, while Scott would not shut up about how hot Lily was. He even had some pictures of Lily wearing a bathing suit in his desk drawer. Ew.

Being friends with an older boy was pretty cool most of the time. Steven was fifteen now and he knew all kinds of stuff parents never tell you, like that the internet is full of free porn. Once everyone else went to sleep, Steven and I would download a porn onto his laptop and we would jack off together. He even had a couple of DVDs and magazines that he would let me borrow as long as I promised to bring them back.

Steven had an older friend at school who sold him the porn. The friend had an older brother who was eighteen, so he had access to all kinds of stuff that we could not get otherwise. Sometimes I would give Steven money to buy stuff for me and I even asked him to get me a DVD with gay boys once. I gave the DVD to Edward to cheer him up after Bobby dumped him.

So I had thought that Steven and I would spend the night jacking off to pictures or videos of naked girls that we find on the internet, but that was not what happened. Steven and I went into his room and got ready for bed as usual. I climbed into my sleeping bag on the floor and he crawled under his covers, just in case anyone came in, and we waited until everyone went to sleep. It only took about half an hour for the sounds of doors opening and closing to stop. We waited a few minutes more, after we heard Scott finish in the bathroom, but then we heard the sound of their dad snoring from down the hall and figured we were safe. Mr. Markes snored like a bear.

I got up and sat down on Steven's bean bag chair, positioning it in front of his laptop. I left my pajamas on, waiting for the porn to start, but then I never did take them off. I would just inch them down and pull my junk out, so that he would not see. Sometimes I would get totally naked for Bella, but she was different, because she was my girlfriend and I trusted her. But even then I had a bunch of hair down there that covered everything and Bella never tried to touch me there. She kept her hands on my shaft, where I liked them.

Thinking of Bella made me start thinking of Bella's hot body and I started preparing mentally for the night's activities. But then my thoughts of Bella were cut short, because Steven did not turn on the laptop; instead he opened up his top drawer and pulled out a little baggy. "What's that?" I asked confused.

"I got a treat for your birthday, Rus," he said showing me the bag. It looked like basil or oregano, but the only light in the room came from the little lamp on his desk, so I could not really see. "Have you ever smoked weed before?"

"No, our Mom only ever did coke," I replied scared. Weed was a drug and I did not want to do drugs and turn into my mother. The Cullens would probably kick me out if I did.

"Well you're in for a treat. I don't know where to get coke, but Jimmy from down the street sold me this. It cost twenty dollars."

"Isn't Jimmy the same age as Lily and Scott?" I asked confused.

"Yeah, he's in their class. His mom's way messed up. She gives him weed to take to school to sell to the other kids. Scott told me about him."

"Oh," I replied not sure what to say. I did not like the idea that Lily was in a class with a drug dealer, but I did not know what to do about it. My parents were not here and it was too late to call them and I did not want to get Steven in trouble.

"I saved up my allowance just to get this for us," he said pulling out some paper and a lighter. It took him a long time, but he eventually managed to roll some of the crumbly green stuff up into the paper and made a funny looking cigarette. He put it to his lips and lit up, but started coughing immediately and tried to hand it off to me.

I did not take the weed. Instead I jumped out of the chair and ran for Lily and Daisy's room, slamming Steven's door behind me. They had both been asleep, but Lily woke up when I entered their room. She was confused at first and before she had a chance to ask me what was wrong, Steven knocked on her door asking if I was alright.

"No, I wanna go home," I replied locking Lily's door so that Steven could not come it.

"Why, what's wrong?" Steven asked through the door.

"Nothing, I just wanna go home."

"Look man, I didn't think you'd react like this. Weed's not that big of a deal. Scott and Lily smoked with me last week when I got the bag. I was saving the rest for your birthday."

"Lily, please tell me he's lying," I pleaded with my sister. "Didn't we promise each other when we were little that we were never gonna do drugs like Mom?"

"Rus, we promised we were never gonna do coke. I haven't done coke. Weed's like cigarettes; it's no big deal," Lily replied.

"What're your new parents gonna say when they find out? Did you even think of the Markeses?"

"Mom and Dad won't care. They used to get high when they were our age; they told me so," Steven replied from the other side of the door. "Will you let me in so we can talk?"

"Your new parents might not care, but mine do. I want to go home."

"Fine, I'll go get the phone and we can call your Mom," Steven said and I heard footsteps on the other side of the door.

"Please don't rat us out," Lily begged me.

"I can't believe this. I just wanna go home," I repeated again as I heard the footsteps coming back towards the room.

"Open up Rus, I've got the phone," Steven said.

Lily opened the door and got the phone from Steven. "Don't tell on us," she said again and handed me the phone.

Mom and Dad were already asleep, but Dad came over and picked me up only twenty-five minutes later. I saw his headlights from Lily's room and ran outside to meet him when he arrived. I had all of my stuff in my backpack on my back already, so I was ready to go and had hoped we could just drive off and go home. I did not want to tell on Lily, because she had just spent the last twenty-five minutes begging me not to, but dad would not leave until I told him what happened.

Dad listened calmly when I told him about how Steven had offered me weed and he even smiled when I told him I ran away instead of taking it. But then he asked me where Steven, a fifteen year old, had gotten weed from, and I told him the part about Jimmy. I tried to leave Scott and Lily out of it, but Dad asked me point blank if they had smoked weed too and I could not lie to him. As soon as the words were out of my mouth Dad was exiting the car saying, "Come on Rus, I need to speak with the Markeses right now."

He woke Mr. and Mrs. Markes up and asked them if they knew about the weed problem in their house and then he relayed everything I had told him. I caught Lily, Steven, and Scott watching us from the hallway and the look on my sister's face could have killed. I tried to apologize, but she would not even look at me. And then Dad and the Markeses were yelling about something. Lily ran off into her room and locked me out and I was whispering through the door, hoping that Daisy would not wake up, but that was when Dad came and got me and said, "We have to go. Now."

I was scared and worried about Lily and confused about why we had left so quickly, so I stayed silent in the car on the way home.

"You did the right thing by calling me Rus," Dad said, breaking the silence as we pulled onto the highway.

"I think Lily is really mad at me for telling," I replied, really upset but trying not to cry.

"Not as mad as the Markeses are at me. I don't think they're gonna let you come over anymore."

"Why are they mad at you?"

"Well I sort of went off on them when I found out they didn't care about their kids buying and using drugs. They said that they would make sure Steven doesn't offer you any ever again, but they didn't even care that their two twelve year olds had already tried it," Dad said. Scott was almost thirteen, but his birthday was not until next month. "I'm gonna file a police report in the morning and call Lily and Daisy's worker and try to get them moved to another home. The Markeses never finalized their adoption like your Mom and I did with you, so there is still a chance we can get them moved."

"Can they come live with us?" I asked hopefully.

"We'll see Rus. It's up to the judge and the social workers, but your Mom and I will take them if we can get them."

"Thanks Dad," I replied, thinking that this might turn out okay after all.

But I was wrong: things did not turn out okay, because Mom and Dad never got the chance to take in Lily and Daisy. Mr. and Mrs. Markes made Steven get rid of the weed before the cops showed up and they all denied the whole thing. Charlie believed me, but the cops from Beaver took their side and refused to file charges. And without charges filed, the social worker could not do anything. The whole thing never even made it to the judge.

And not only did Lily and Daisy not get to come live with us, but their parents and my parents stopped talking to each other. Dad and Mom said that they did not want me over at the Markeses anymore, because the Markeses were bad influences and their house was not safe. And when I called Lily, she said that her parents did not want me coming over either, because my parents had told the police. And with both sides mad at each other, Lily, Daisy, and I did not get to see each other again. We talked on the phone a few times, but that was it, although Lily did say that she forgives me for telling. She was mad at my dad, not me.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: So Steven Markes was the one corrupting innocent little Russell. And next he is going to have a problem with Bella trying to corrupt him. Poor Rus- it is a shame he and his sisters are being pulled apart. But at least Edward will be getting a new boyfriend next chapter. Who would you like to see him end up with?<p> 


	33. Chapter 32

Edward's POV:

It was that time of year again: my birthday. Most thirteen year olds are excited for their birthday to come, because it means presents, cake, and a party, but not me, because it reminded me of Bobby too much. Our first kiss had been at my big birthday party last year and the last thing I wanted was to be reminded of it. But my parents insisted we had to have some sort of celebration, so I asked for a trip to the beach. The beach had actually been Russell's idea, because he wanted to see Bella in her swimsuit again.

Dad was supposed to take the day off and come with us, but he got called into the hospital for some emergency. And I had only invited one friend, Bella, so this was looking to be my smallest birthday gathering yet. In fact, the only other kids coming were Henry and his sisters, because Jasper had invited them. And the only other adult was Henry's Mom, because Bella's dad had to work too.

And so we all piled into Mom's car and drove to First Beach, out in La Push, picking Bella up on the way. In the car I started reflecting on everything that had gone wrong in the last year, so I was a bit of a downer. When we got to the beach, I just spread my towel out and lied in the sun, while my siblings enjoyed themselves. Henry and his family arrived shortly after we did, adding three more kids to the mix. Jasper and Alice went over to look at the tide pools with Henry's two sisters, while Emmett went body surfing with Henry, and Russell and Bella played in the surf.

I was watching my brother and my best friend splash around in the waves, while wondering why Bobby and I could not be like that. Russell and Bella had been going steady for almost two years with no signs of slowing down. Why were they so happy and still together when Bobby and I were over so quick? Bella even told me last week that if Russell did not make a move soon, she was going to try to jump his bones.

Russell was just as crazy about Bella as she was about him, but I also knew that he was scared to death of taking the Chief of Police's daughter to bed. Bella was pretty sure that her dad would not mind, but it was Russell's neck on the line, not hers. Plus Bella was seven months older than Russell, so she was more mature. She was going to be fourteen in September, so she thought that she was plenty old enough to be sexually active. Poor Russell.

I was just thinking about Russell's dilemma when a tall native boy my age came over and greeted me. "Hey, you look strangely familiar," he said. "Have we met before?" He was smiling, so this was definitely a pick up line. This boy was about six inches taller than me with deep red skin, sparkling brown eyes, and long brown hair. In other words, he was gorgeous.

"No, I'd remember meeting someone as pretty as you," I replied standing up and smiling at my admirer.

"Yeah we have: you're Edward!" he exclaimed crushing me into a too tight to breathe hug.

"Can't breathe," I gasped out, not sure what was going on.

"It's me: Jacob. Don't you recognize me Tinker Bell?" he asked.

And then it suddenly clicked for me: Jacob and I had been friends before my parents died. We used to kiss each other on the cheek and hold hands. He would call me his Tinker Bell and I called him my Spider Monkey. How could I have forgotten that? Okay I know how: I am pretty sure we were only three at the time. It is hard to remember anything from way back then.

"Is it really you Spider Monkey?" I asked throwing myself back into his arms. I was really glad to see him again after all of these years and my birthday was suddenly looking up.

"Yep. I've been here on the Res where you left me this whole time," he replied kissing my cheek and holding me tightly in his embrace.

"I missed you so much Spider Monkey," I said, turning my face so that his lips would brush mine. As soon as I did, he returned the kiss passionately, his tongue darting out to lick my lips. I readily opened my mouth for him: finally someone who was not shy or reluctant to touch me. It seemed Jacob and I were picking up right where we left off when we were boys, except this time we were teenagers.

"Edward, who's your friend?" I heard my mom ask, as I felt Jacob's hand cupping my bottom, pulling me closer to him. I could feel his erection pressing into my groin, so it took me a minute to string together my mother's words to make a sentence and understand what she was asking.

"Wait, my mom," I gasped out, breaking the urgent kiss before Jacob could take our reunion any further.

"Didn't your parents die?" Jacob asked, setting me back down on the sand.

"Yeah, I got adopted," I said distancing myself so that I could look at my mother without being embarrassed about where Jacob and I were touching. "Mom, this's my friend Jacob. We used to be best friends before my old parents died. Jacob, this's my mom, Mrs. Cullen."

"Nice to meet you Mrs. Cullen," Jacob greeted. "I'm sorry if I came on a bit too strong: it's just that I haven't seen my Tinker Bell in years. I missed him so much. I'll try harder to keep my hands to myself."

"No, you don't have to ask me if you can touch him, that's up to Tink. I just wanted to meet you. Don't let me disturb you, but I do have to ask that you two keep the goods in your shorts until you have some privacy: Edward's little sister and brother are only ten and eleven and the Johansson girls are only eight and six," Mom replied.

"You aren't an only child anymore?" Jacob asked. "You've got to introduce me!"

I called all my siblings and the neighbor kids over and introduced Jacob. It turned out that Bella already knew Jacob because their dads were old friends and everyone else greeted him politely. But Jacob and I wanted some time alone to catch up, so we excused ourselves and went for a walk down the beach, just the two of us. He was from the area, so he led me to a little clearing that was blocked from view by the woods, before stopping.

"I'm so sorry if I'm going too fast, but my dick is aching from seeing you again and I can't get what your mom said out of my mind," he said pressing our bodies together so tightly that I could feel his penis throbbing against my stomach.

"Me too Spider Monkey," I admitted, taking his hand and guiding it to my crotch.

He wasted no time in tugging my swim trunks down and taking my erection in his hand. He did not even hesitate to say that it was small or looked funny, he just held it like it was the most natural thing in the world. This was the first time I had ever been touched by another boy and it felt wonderful. This was all I had wanted from Bobby before. Why was it that Jacob was so willing, but Bobby so hesitant?

I did not have long to think about this question, because very shortly Jacob's touch made me lose all thoughts and just feel. The one thought that did cross my mind was the desire to see his penis, to make him feel as good as he was making me feel, so I reached over to his waist and tugged on the band of his shorts.

Jacob was wearing loose jean shorts, and as soon as I popped the button, they fell to his ankles exposing his gorgeous erection: he was going commando. Jacob made Bobby look small. He was long and thick and I wrapped my hand around it, but I could not touch my thumb to my forefinger, because it was so big.

I slowly circled my forefinger around his big squishy tip, and his other head fell back, but he continued to touch me all the same. When he retracted my foreskin, I gasped out in surprise at the delicious contact: it felt unbelievably good to be touched by someone else for a change: he was warm and just perfect. "Slow down," I hissed through clinched teeth. The sensation was so much it was making my head spin and I could already feel the tingling starting in my balls. With the sensation of Jacob's hand on my dick, I was already trying not to spill my load.

"Sorry. How slow do'ya wanna go?" he asked slowing his rhythm, but not letting go or stopping.

"Just stop for a minute. No wait, leave your hand there," I rectified my mistake when he began to pull his hand away. "Just hold it without moving for a minute and give me a chance to adjust."

He nodded and held me tightly in his warm firm grip. As soon as the blood rush to the little man subsided, I resumed my stroking of him. He was throbbing and pulsing and leaking under my touch. I really wanted to make him come with me, so I concentrated on the feel of his russet member in my hands.

I knew what I liked when I jacked-off, but I did not want to rush this and simply do whatever would get him off quickest. So I slowly circled the rim of his mushroom shaped head one more time, before slowly running my finger along the bottom. When I reached the base, I reached down and cupped his balls, wanting to feel every part of him. I kept his balls in my hand for a few minutes, examining them. Although I had a pair of my own, it was a completely different feeling to touch someone else's. Jacob's balls were the same size as mine, but his were dark and his sack hung looser.

Finally I moved my hand back up to his penis. I grabbed hold of the base, and slowly stroked upwards. After a few more slow strokes, I began to fist him in earnest, using the fluid that was leaking from his slit. He threw his head back, again, and moaned loudly. Watching Jacob in ecstasy was one of the biggest turns-ons I had ever seen. I almost came just watching him with only the sensation of his hand gripping tightly on my penis. The look on his face was priceless.

"I'm coming," he finally grunted after starting to buck his hips into my hands. He was taller than me, so I was holding my hand at waist height while I watched his head enter and retreat from my hands.

"Start stroking me again and I'll come with you," I replied tilting my head up and begging for a kiss.

He bent down, kissed me, and resumed his stroking of my penis, and very shortly we were both in absolute bliss. There was no doubt in my mind that this was the best orgasm I had ever experienced. It was better than my first time in the shower with Russell. It was better than when I touched myself while watching dirty movies. It was even better than the time Bobby let me dry hump him.

When we finished, we looked into each other's eyes. In his eyes I could see the desire to lie down on the sand and hold me. I wanted that too, but before moving, I looked down at our spent dicks. I was horrified by what I found.

"Darwin! My dad's gonna kill me for this! I'm gonna be in so much trouble! I can't believe we just did that!" I exclaimed without explaining what I was on about.

"What? I thought your mom said that this way okay," Jacob said beginning to worry.

"It's not the handjobs that's the problem. We got our come all over each other! Not just on our own bodies, but mine is on you and yours is on me. That's not safe sex. Shit! My dad gives me safe sex lectures ever other Darwinian day!"

"Oh, well I'm clean and we can just wash it off," Jacob replied in a depressed voice.

"Sorry Spider Monkey, it's not your fault. I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at me. I really should've been thinking more clearly and arranged this better."

"Um…how were we supposed to do it to make it safe?" he asked confused.

It may not have been that big of a deal, if we were both clean, but this was my first opportunity to obey my father in his one request, and I had failed miserably. I felt horrible about it. "Well it's fine as long as your come doesn't touch my penis, or vice versa. We could have aimed away from each other, or taken turns, or used condoms." My dad mentioned these facts at least once a week, so I knew them well enough to repeat them back. But knowing them and being prepared to put them into practice in the heat of the moment were two different things.

"Okay. I'll try to aim away next time," he replied with a huge smile breaking through.

"Have you had sex before? Have you been tested?" I asked, sure that my dad would want his sexual history and some blood for a panel of tests.

"I'm still a virgin. There aren't many gays out here on the Res. Only one other our age and Seth's my cousin," he replied.

"I'm still a virgin too, but my dad's gonna want to test both of us for STDs after this, just in case."

"Okay, as long as I can bring you home and introduce you to my dad as my boyfriend," he said, taking me back into his arms and smearing our come between us. "Now let's go wash off in the ocean."

"Okay," I replied warring with myself over whether to freak out that our come was getting all over the place or to relax into the hug. But then I figured the damage was already done, so I jumped up and wrapped my legs around his waist and let him carry our naked bodies into the surf.

We were covered to out waists by the ocean, but he was still cradling my body tightly against his while he used his cupped hand to pour cool water down my chest. I was already hard again from the sensation of his body on mine, when I threw my head back to moan and noticed that I could see my mother from this angle. At least I could not see Mrs. Johansson. I knew Mom could see us too, because she was staring at us. I could have sworn she was giving me the eye, but I could not be certain because she was about half a mile away. You know the look when your mother catches you doing something she just told you not to do, like skinny dipping in the ocean when your little brother and sister are watching? That was the look I thought I saw.

"Darwin, my Mom can see us," I said as Jacob continued to wash our bodies.

"Well our cocks are between us, so I don't think she got much of a view. But we can go in a little deeper to make sure she doesn't see what I'm gonna do to you next," he replied before crushing his warm lips to mine once more.

He led us further out, so that the water was up to his chest and I would barely be able to stand if I tried, because he was that much taller than me, but my legs were still wrapped around his chest and my hard penis was pressed into his abdomen. "Are you hard for me already?" he asked reaching down to wrap his hand around me.

"Mm-hmm," I murmured, enjoying the sensation. "Always for you Spider."

"When are'ya gonna let me fuck that virgin ass of yours? It feels so good in my hands," he said as he squeezed my butt with the hand he was using to hold me up.

"Tomorrow. Come over to my house. Do you have any condoms?" I asked between pants.

Jacob answered by bringing our lips back together and thrusting his tongue down my throat so fiercely that I was having trouble breathing. When he finally let me catch my breath, he said, "I don't got any now, but I can buy some on my way over."

"Don't bother; my dad'll get us some. I don't know if he's already got some, but if not, he'll go out and buy some right away. My older brother's almost your size," I panted.

"Okay. Then I'll be over first thing in the morning to impale you with my cock until you're screaming my name and coming all over me. You're not gonna be able to walk by the time I get done with pounding your ass," he spoke softly into my ear as he increased his strokes.

I was not sure if he really meant it or if he was just saying it to get me off, but it was working. I could not take it any longer, even though I was trying to hold out to make it last, because Jacob's grip was just too tight and firm and I was creaming, spilling into the ocean. "Was that safer, Tinker Bell?" Jacob asked me giving me a soft peck on the lips.

"Yeah, thanks Spider Monkey," I answered laying my head down on his chest.

"You're welcome my Tink," he said kissing my hair. "Now let's go put our clothes back on before your mom comes over here."

By this time I was feeling very sleepy, but I turned my head to where I had last seen my mother, just to check. I could still see her, but thankfully she was not watching us and Jacob kept his back to her as we exited the ocean, so if she did look, it would be his rear she saw, not mine.

Jacob must have been very concerned for my modesty, because keeping his back to my mom meant having to walk side-ways along the beach like a crab, but he did it. He set me down back in our little nook amongst the trees and handed me my trunks. We both put our clothes back on, before he lied down in the sand and pulled me to his chest. I rested my head on his shoulder and was asleep before I could even think about what we were doing.

When I woke up the sun was already low in the sky over the Pacific Ocean and Jacob was kissing me lightly. He kissed my hair, my cheek, my nose, my arm, my shoulder, my neck, and behind my ear. "That tickles," I said sleepily.

"Well you need to wake up and fly back to fairy hallow my little pixie: your mom called you."

"She did?" I asked suddenly sitting up and wide awake.

"Yep. It's five: they pro'lly wanna go home, but I think she's too afraid of what she might find to come over and get you herself," he said before sweetly kissing my lips.

"Can I introduce you to my mom?" I ask standing up and reaching down for his hand.

"We already met. And I think it's your dad and my blood that need to meet," he joked, standing up and taking my hand.

"Yeah. Can you come home with me tonight to meet Dad? There's room in the car for one more," I said leading my Spider Monkey back along the beach.

"I'll have to ask my dad first. I'm 'posed to be home by dark. I'm just so happy to've found you again!"

"Me too," I replied leaning my head on his shoulder as we walked.

Mom was staring at the two of us when we approached and she did not look happy. "Sorry Mom. I kind of got carried away," I admitted sheepishly.

"Well Alice saw you, but it was tomorrow in the garage, not today on the beach, so I don't really think there's anything you could've done about that," she replied, but did not smile.

"Um, what'll we be doing tomorrow in the garage?" I asked nervously.

"You'll have to talk to your father about it, but Alice already called and asked him to pick up condoms in Jacob's size."

"Um, I think ya lost me. How'd Alice see us tomorrow?" Jacob asked confused.

"Alice's psychic. She saw us doing what I agreed to do tomorrow so she already told my dad we were planning it," I explained. We did not typically tell other people about Alice's visions, but if Jacob and I were dating now, he would find out sooner or later.

"Oh…" Jacob trailed off.

"Mom, Jacob and I had an accident today. I think Dad'll want to test him for STDs or something," I said quietly while looking at my shoes.

"I'm sorry Mrs. Cullen. I was just so excited to be with my Tinker Bell again that I didn't stop to think. But I'm a virgin and I'll be happy to submit to your husband's tests, if you just let me tell my dad where I'll be," Jacob said sincerely.

"Okay, you can use my phone to ask permission and then I want to talk to him myself," Mom said handing over her cell phone. "Bella! Russell! Stop making-out and clean the sand off of you."

I looked over to where Mom was shouting to find Russell and Bella covered in sand and having a sand fight: they were flinging globs of wet sand at each other and then stopping to shove their tongues down each other's throats. It was rather gross.

As I watched Russell and Bella, Jasper and Alice walked up and Alice had her hands over his trunks and resting on his butt. "Just trying to deflect some of the attention off of you," Alice said shrugging. "The Johanssons already had to leave a couple of hours ago." Now that she mentioned it, Henry and his sisters were nowhere to be seen.

Emmett must have been in on Alice's deflection plan too, because I spotted him making out with another local over by the car. So now we had our answer to which sex he prefers: she was definitely a girl. "What's up Emmett?" I asked as I walked over to where my brother was making-out for the first time.

"Alice said we all had to be really bad or you're gonna get grounded for your birthday. You owe Bella big time, because when you were 'bout to take your naked dive in the ocean, Alice told Bella. Bella distracted Mom by reaching her hand down Russell's pants and feeling him up. Russell had no idea it was coming either," Emmett said before breaking into fits of laughter.

"Won't Russell be in trouble for that?" I asked.

"No, Russell freaked. It was obvious that he wasn't involved. But Bella will be: Mom already called her dad and told him what she did. She's grounded for a month," Emmett replied.

"And who's your friend?" I asked indicating the brunette who he had just been Frenching.

"Kim. She's a local and goes to school with Jacob. When I told her that Jacob was gonna be in big trouble if we didn't distract Mom, she agreed. Mom was so shocked seeing us make out that she forgot about how mad she was at Bella. And look! Now she finally got off the phone and noticed Alice's hand! Henry even got in on the action and was making out with Kim's friend earlier: that sure distracted Mrs. Johansson!"

"She can't get mad at us if we're all doing the same thing?" I asked.

"That's what Alice said. 'Though I'm pretty sure she can be mad at Alice because Jasper's only 'leven and he's obviously uncomfortable with her hand being there. Watching him cringe's almost as funny as the look on Mom's face when she heard you and Jacob going at it in the ocean!"

"She heard?" I asked as Jacob joined me.

"Yep: you were pretty loud. Alice and I've got a bet going: What were you moaning?" Emmett asked.

"Nothing comprehensible," Jacob answered for me.

"Then we both lost. Alice thought it was, 'Spider Monkey,' and I had my money on, 'Oh Jacob,'" Emmett chortled.

"Knock it off, Mom's coming," Russell said as he and Bella joined us.

"And just so you know, Alice says that this'll set me jumping Russell back at least a month," Bella complained holding Russell's hand. "My dad has a sex talk planned for me and everything. I'd say Russell might not survive, but he was the only innocent one in the whole mess, so I'm pretty sure my dad won't shoot. Oh and hi Jake"

"Hey Bells. You should've told me you knew my Tinker Bell: I've been looking for him for years," Jacob replied.

"If he shoots me, I'm telling Mom what you two did," Russell warned me.

"Will it help if I tell Charlie you only did it for me?" I asked.

"No, because I'm gonna tell him about my plans to steal Russell's virginity when I get home," Bella replied as my mom finished scolding Alice.

"I don't know what got into you kids today, but your fathers have talks planned for all of you: even you Jacob," Mom announced putting a cooler in the car.

So Emmett gave Kim one last parting kiss and we piled in the car, before heading to drop Bella off.

Chief Swan was already waiting for her with a stern look on his face. "Good luck Bells," Russell said giving her a quick kiss. "If you don't survive, I'll miss you and put flowers on your grave every day."

"Tell Charlie I said hi," Jacob ordered as she exited the vehicle to her awaiting fate.  
>If the look Charlie had was stern, then the look my dad had was killer: he was waiting on our porch with his blood draw kit. "Looks like Edward and Jacob are up first," Mom announced as we parked. "But the rest of you are on restriction until after Dad talks to you."<p>

"Me too? If anything, Jasper and I were the victims in all of this. We should be allowed to play outside until Dad tells us how sorry he is that we got groped," Russell replied. "At least I have something new to talk about in therapy."

"And all I did was kiss a girl," Emmett added.

"Fine, only Alice is on restriction as long as you three behave: I'd've never thought one little trip to the beach could be so trying!" Mom exclaimed exasperated as she got out of the car.

Jacob and I waited until everyone else had exited the vehicle to follow. We slowly walked up to the porch, hand-in-hand, but I was looking at my shoes instead of meeting my father's stare.

"Hello Dr. Cullen, I'm Edward's boyfriend, Jacob Black," Jacob greeted extending his hand.

My dad shook Jacob's hand, and curtly invited us inside to his office. After Dad drew our blood, he asked for a detailed account of events. His glare lessened a bit after I told him how we had accidently exchanged fluids, but he still said we needed to be more careful the next time and gave Jacob a safe sex lecture and a bag of condoms, complete with lube.

"And please make sure to use the garage next time: if your siblings catch you again and give your mother a hard time while trying to cover for you, our leniency will end," Dad warned.

Then he said to send Alice in, who ended up getting grounded for two months for groping Jasper's butt. Emmett got a talk about which STDs can be transferred orally: mainly HPV and Herpes. And Russell got a talk about safe sex, because by that time, Chief Swan had called to warn Dad of what Bella was planning to do to Russell. Apparently Bella survived, so the flowers were not needed.

After that, Dad drove me over to Jacob's house where Jacob and I received a lecture from Mr. Black on something…he was so flabbergasted that he kept running out of breath and stopping mid-sentence and I had a hard time trying to figure out what he was trying to say. Jacob did all of the talking, saying, "Yes Dad," "No Sir," "Sorry Sir," and "You're absolutely right Dad," in all of the right places.

Then my dad talked to Mr. Black for a while and this made a lot more sense to me: Dad was telling Mr. Black about the STD tests he was running and that we were planning on having sex tomorrow and that he gave Jacob a bag of condoms. When Dad said this last part, Jacob held up his bag, and I think Mr. Black would have fainted if he had not already been sitting in his wheelchair.

Dad and I left Jacob there, but Dad was not done talking: he gave me a lecture on how painful anal sex could be the first time, especially with a partner as big as Jacob. He kept stressing the need for lube and to go slowly, even recommending that I let Jacob finger me a few times first. Dad's description made me wish Alice had not told our father my partner's dimensions, but how else was he going to pick up the right sized condoms?

I was really grateful when my birthday ended and I was finally allowed to go to sleep. And I am not sure how we managed it, but neither Jacob nor I got grounded, so it looks like we are still on for tomorrow.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Carlisle and Esme don't want to tell the kids no, but they have something else up their sleeves to slow Edward and Jacob down. What do you think they are planning?<p> 


	34. Chapter 33

Edward's POV:

The next day Jacob came over with his bag of condoms and my mom sent us off to the garage right away, before Jacob could even get in the house. "What's so special about the garage?" Jacob asked as we opened the door and looked at my mom's car parked in her spot.

"I'm not sure. I think they just want us out of the house so my brothers don't hear. But there is a storage loft up this way," I replied leading him towards the back of the garage where the ladder to the loft was located.

I knew my mom had renovated this area when she did the rest of the house, even adding in a bathroom, but the last time I had seen the loft, it was full of old boxes from the attic. 'Maybe Dad was looking out and left a blanket up here for us or something,' I thought as I climbed the ladder.

"Wow!" I exclaimed as I reached the top. Jacob followed right behind me and was by my side a second later.

"What is this place?" he asked taking me into his arms.

My jaw dropped to the floor as I surveyed my surroundings. The main feature of this space was a king sized bed, not a pile of boxes. Mom must have done a lot more renovations on the loft recently, because in addition to the bed, there was a line of cabinets on one side. The bathroom was still in the corner, so I stepped forward and peered inside. The bathroom was complete with a sink and bathtub slash shower. The area above the garage was set up like a little apartment, except for the lack of kitchen and living room, that was.

"I think we've been set up," I answered leaning back into his arms. "They must've built this place so that we could have sex without bothering the other kids."

"Why does that cabinet have my name on it?" he asked leaning down to kiss me.

I returned the kiss, but broke it short in order to examine the cabinets more closely. There was a top and bottom row of cabinets, with a counter in between. The first upper cabinet was left unlabeled, but the following seven were labeled Emmett, Russell, Bella, Edward, Jacob, Jasper, and Alice, in that order. The bottom cabinets were labeled towels, sheets, trash can, laundry, spare female clothing, spare male clothing, hygiene products, and extra condoms.

I walked over and opened the cabinet with my name on it and found a brown paper bag full of condoms and lube, just like Mom and Dad always give me. The cabinet also contained a package of baby wipes and a box of Ziploc bags, next to a stack of boxes labeled "Home Enema Kit" and "Anal Douche." There were five each of the enema kits and anal douches, so I was thinking that my parents must really think I needed to clean my butt, while Jacob walked over and opened his own cabinet.

"What's this?" Jacob asked pulling out a book. "Your parents bought me a book called How to Treat Your Gay Lover Right." He flipped through the pages to a set of colored photos depicting how to prepare your lover's anus for penetration.

"Oh, my dad was saying something about that last night: he said it can hurt if you don't get it ready first," I said peeking over at his cabinet. There was also a book called The Kama Sutra for Gays- an Illustrated Guide. I picked that one up and began to examine all of the positions.

"I didn't know you have to clean it and lube it and stretch it first!" Jacob exclaimed reading his book.

"Have you ever done this position?" I asked pointing to a picture of two men performing sixty-nine on each other.

"No: I've never even done oral. You're the only boy I've even kissed," Jacob admitted seriously. "I think we're getting ahead of ourselves Tinker Bell. I'm not ready and according to this book I might hurt you. I think we should try oral first."

"Whatever you want Spider Monkey," I replied looking over his shoulder to see what he was reading: not only was his book illustrated, but it was very thorough. My dad must have picked it out to make sure that my partner does not hurt me, because there seemed to be an entire chapter on fingering your partner's ass in order to prepare it for penetration. "Maybe we could try that too." I pointed to the illustration of one guy fingering his partner.

"I need to read the chapter first. And it says to start with an enema or anal douche, so you might want to read that chapter too. Although it does say that an enema only needs to be performed if there is fecal matter in the colon, otherwise the anal douche is fine. How's your colon feeling?" he asked me.

"Um, I don't know. Is there a chapter on how to tell?" I asked.

"I think it's covered in the one on enemas and douches. I'm not horny anymore: I'm so scared about possibly, 'tearing my loved one's anus,' that I've completely lost my erection," Jacob said getting up from the bed and going to stand in between the cabinets and the bathroom with a strained look on his normally cheery face.

"Well maybe we do need to slow down a bit. We could read some of these books and go through the exercises one at a time," I replied going to stand behind him. But I was so much shorter than him that my head only came to his shoulder.

"Edward? Have you read this?" Jacob asked me pointing to a laminated sheet taped to the side of the first cabinet.

The sheet was titled, "Garage Usage Rules." And below the header was a list of rules to follow, including that everyone must use their own cabinet space to store their condoms and lube, and that the sheets must be changed and placed in the hamper after each use. Also, the towels were to be laid down under "messy activities" so as to "prevent seepage onto the mattress."

Anyone caught in violation of the rules would be banned from using the garage. And the very last rule was the can of tomato sauce rule. The rule was that if you got caught by a younger sibling exiting the garage, you were to run back in, grab the one can from the counter, and claim that your reason for being in the garage was to retrieve said can. Then it said to be sure to return the prop for future use when done.

Jacob pointed to a lone can of tomato sauce and started laughing. "I thought that can looked out of place!"

We both laughed, which helped us relax, so we were no longer stressing about what the book said. Instead Jacob wrapped his arms back around me and pulled me tightly to his body, pressing his erection into my side, as he claimed my lips. He led us both back over to the bed and tore my clothes off, before removing his own.

He pushed me back on the bed, so that I was lying down, and pushed my knees open so that he could get at my cock. "Wait," I said as he was lowering his mouth to my penis.

"What? I thought you wanted to do oral today?" he asked confused.

"I do. It's just…" I trailed off not knowing how to phrase this. I had wanted Bobby to ignore my birth defect so much, but now when Jacob did not seem to even notice it, it bothered me. Did he see it and not care, or had he not even looked at the cock in his hands?

"It's what? You don't like how my rough ugly hands feel on your gorgeous silky dick?" he asked me.

"No. It's just that I have a micropenis and a hypospadias and you haven't even commented on it. Does it really not bother you?" I asked nervously.

"Of course your perfect cock does not bother me. And you must have at least four inches here, how can that be a micro anything?" he asked confused.

"I have to get testosterone shots twice a week to make it grow. Dad says it still might grow another inch if I keep up the shots, but it has already grown two since I started."

"Well if it's only one more inch, then okay. But I'm not sure I want you getting shots so you can fuck me with a giant cock."

"What do you mean fuck you? I thought we agreed I'm the bottom. And you're one to talk with that monster between your legs," I replied indignantly.

"Hey, this is what I was born with: I can't help it. And I assumed that we'd trade and you'd do me after I did you."

"Oh… Do you really want that?" I asked surprised. I had never considered that any man would want me to enter him. I just figured that since I was so small, I would always be the one on the bottom.

"Yes. But what is that other thing you said you had?" he asked me concerned.

"A hypospadias. See the urethra is supposed to open here, where this white spot is. But instead it opens lower," I said pointing to my head.

"Oh. I just thought you had gotten it pierced and taken the ring out," Jacob replied shrugging. "Does it hurt? Do I need to be careful about it or something?"

"No, it doesn't hurt. But I can't ever go bareback because bacteria could seep in. I get a lot of urinary tract infections," I answered honestly.

"What about oral sex? Are the bacteria from my mouth going to hurt you?" he asked worried.

"Um, I don't know. I've never really asked my dad that one. But he did say to use a dental dam during one of his many safe sex lectures," I replied.

"What's a dental dam?"

"A condom for your mouth. Here, there are some in my bag," I said getting up and retrieving a few from my cabinet. I pulled out one of the pink sheets and draped it over my erect penis. "You keep it between your mouth and my penis and then HPV and Herpes can't spread."

"Well if it'll keep you from getting sick," he replied leaning down and licking the part of the latex sheet that was covering my head.

I moaned and rolled my eyes back at the delicious friction. He wrapped me up in his arms, with one arm behind my back, and the other under my knees, and pulled my body closer to his. I wrapped one of my arms around the back of his neck and he leaned down again, but this time he took my entire latex covered length into his mouth and sucked.

Jacob pulled his mouth off of me, then pushed back down, starting a delicious rhythm on my dick. After about ten minutes, I could not take it any longer and I moaned "Spider Monkey!" and came all over the latex sheet.

"Now what do I do with it?" Jacob asked, pulling the sticky sheet from my spent cock.

"Throw it away and get the baby wipes," I replied pointing to the cabinets while I caught my breath.

Jacob threw the dental dam away and came back with the box of baby wipes and proceeded to gently wipe me clean. Once he was done, he lied down next to me and pulled me in his arms again. "My turn," I said holding up a second dental dam.

"Okay Tinker Bell, but I don't want you to try to take it all in like I did you: I'm a lot bigger than you," he replied smiling at me.

I nodded and tore open the foil wrapper. I quickly got to work licking his penis through the sheet, paying special attention to his head and the sensitive area underneath. While I was doing this, it occurred to me that he also was not circumcised. Bobby had been, but neither I nor any of my brothers had been; not even Alice.

I knew that us Cullen kids were not circumcised because we were intersexed, but there was nothing wrong with Jacob, so I wondered why his had been left. "Why aren't you circumcised?" I asked coming up for air.

"Does it bother you? Native Americans typically don't get circumcised. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal because you aren't either," he replied blushing.

"I don't mind, I was just curious. I've still got mine because of the micropenis. They left it incase more skin was needed for a penile reconstruction, but the shots are working, so I don't need one," I said shrugging. "I just thought everyone who was normal had it removed."

"Well, think about it this way: now that you're old enough to enjoy it, would you have it cut off? I don't know about you, but mine is really sensitive and I like it."

"I guess you've got a point," I said lowering my mouth back to his penis.

Jacob kept moaning at everything I did, but he still was not coming, so I decided to add one hand to his shaft and the other to his balls. Two minutes after that he started thrusting up into my mouth and moaning, "Tinker Bell," over and over again.

I could tell he was close, so I took him in as far as I could and tried to deep throat him. It did not work, in that I was not able to get his penis down my throat, but he did start coming: I could feel the spurts under the latex sheet and my hand became very sticky.

After that I threw away the dental dam and wiped Jacob up, before climbing back into his arms. We fell asleep like that, with my head resting on his arm. When we woke up, we put our clothes back on, changed the sheets, and grabbed the book with the instructions on fingering and enemas. Then we went back inside to read side-by-side on the couch in the living room.

"I see you boys found the books. Just don't let the little ones see them. I don't know what Alice would do if she got hold of one: I'm pretty sure she would cause little Jasper to need even more therapy," Mom said coming out from her office.

"Why would Alice use a gay book on Jasper?" Jacob asked me confused.

"Don't tell anyone, but we're all intersexed in this house. Alice has a penis too, but Jasper doesn't have a vagina, so Mom is worried she might get ideas on fingering him," I replied.

I thought I had said this quietly enough that no one could hear, but I must have been wrong, because Alice came storming out of her room: the door must have been open. "I don't know what you're talking about Edward! Jasper does too have a vagina so I've got no reason to take it there with him!" she yelled very loudly. Good thing the neighbors are on the other side of the forest.

"Alice, calm down sweetie," Mom soothed. "Do you know something that the rest of us don't know? The last I heard, Jasper didn't have a vagina."

"He has always had a vagina!" Alice exclaimed still mad.

"And how do you know this?" Mom asked calmly.

"My visions: I've been seeing our honeymoon for years: I enter him. My penis. His vagina. Big wedding. I'm in a dress. He's in a tux," Alice replied almost making sense.

"Well I'll call Dad and ask him to examine Jasper again," Mom replied much more calmly than Alice, although she was clearly upset.

"Your siblings're weird," Jacob whispered into my ear.

"Why's Jasper bawling in his room?" Emmett asked coming down the stairs. "Russell's with him, but he can't figure it out either."

"Alice just screamed at the top of her lungs that he has a vagina. Maybe he heard: his room's the closest to the stairs," I replied. As I was saying this, Alice started running up the stairs.

"Now wait a minute young lady: you started this. You better not make it worse!" my mom yelled after her. "And you're still grounded."

"Oh hey Jacob. Can you get me Kim's number?" Emmett asked entering the living room. "And since when does Jasper have a vag, Edward? I thought he and you were the only two in the house without one."

"You're going to hurt Jacob's head with all of this personal info. And Alice said that he has always had one in her visions," I replied holding Jacob's hand.

"Sure Emmett, I can get you her number," Jacob replied kissing the back of my hand.

"I'm sorry Jacob, but I have to take Jasper to the hospital to see my husband," my mom said after getting off the phone with my dad. "Even if he doesn't have a yoo-hoo, he's still gonna have to see his therapist between what Alice said today and what she did yesterday. For a psychic she can sure mess up big time…"

"Sorry, but what does this have to do with us?" I asked confused. "We didn't even have sex: we've just been reading this book quietly this whole time."

"Alice's going with me, Emmett's staying here to watch you and Russell, and Jacob's going to have to go home now. But he can come back tomorrow if your siblings can work on their behavior," Mom answered.

"That's fine Mrs. Cullen, I can read at home," Jacob replied before giving me a soft peck on the cheek.

After that Mom ushered a crying Jasper down the stairs and out to the car and Alice followed behind. I walked Jacob to the car and gave him a final kiss before they pulled away. Then I went back to the garage to look for something to read to pass the time.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: So education was the evil plan- Carlisle and Esme left the books to distract Edward and Jacob- that's why Esme sent them off to the garage- to find the books. Next chapter we're gonna get into what is going on with Alice and Jasper :)<p> 


	35. Chapter 34

Russell's POV:

Mom and Alice came home an hour later, but Dad and Jasper did not return with them. With the look on Alice's face, I would have thought that she was the one who just found out she had a vagina. So when she stormed off to her room, I followed. "What's wrong Ali bear?" I asked opening her door. "Did Mom put you on restriction?"

Grounding meant you could not leave the house, restriction meant you could not do anything fun while in the house. Alice was already grounded for putting her hand on Jasper's butt, so I figured announcing the details of their future honeymoon would get her a restriction added to the punishment. It was bad, but it was not that bad.

"Yes, but I don't care about that," Alice replied hugging her knees to her chest.

"Then what happened?"

"Dad's taking Jasper to Port Angeles for an MRI," she replied avoiding my question.

"No, I meant why do you look like your world's falling apart?" I asked sitting next to her on her bed.

"Jasper's so mad at me that he decided he's gonna stay a virgin for the rest of his life and never marry," Alice said before starting to sob into her knees.

"So? Why's that so bad? You aren't even eleven yet: he'll change his mind long before it's time to start thinking about weddings," I said wrapping my arm around her shoulder.

"Because I can't see anymore!" she cried out in between sobs. "I used to be able to see our entire future together: it was set in stone since as long as I can remember, but now it's gone!"

"Everyone can see that you two are meant to be. Jasper'll go to therapy and tell Dr. Flynn how upset he is that you blabbed about your future sex lives. Then he'll forgive you and the future'll return."

"No, I can't see it returning anytime soon: I can see myself looking and crying."

"That's because the decision has not been made. But he's your Jasper and he can't stay mad at you forever. Why don't you talk to him when he gets home?"

"Esme said I'm not allowed to talk to him and to stay away from him until he's ready to forgive me: it's part of my restriction," she seethed. She was obviously fuming mad at Mom, because I had never once heard her call our mother Esme before, not even before we adopted her.

"Well what're you gonna do about it?" I asked concerned. For a moment I thought that she might be planning to run away. Everyone knew she was only here for Jasper anyway: sure she loved the rest of us, but we were all replaceable in her book, just as long as she had her man.

"I can't run away: that'll just take me further from Jasper. I need to find a way to apologize and make him forgive me. I know he's gonna love having a vagina once he gets used to it, but he's gonna be furious at me for a long time first: killing the messenger."

"So he definitely has one?" I asked curious. I had been under the impression that he did not and that Mom took him to the hospital mostly so that Dad could punish Alice and Jasper could talk to Dr. Flynn.

"Dad's taking him for the MRI to see where it is, because he didn't see one in Jasper's last exam. But Dad did admit that Jasper looks weird down there and there were no balls palpable. Even my balls came in already, but Jasper never has any in my visions either."

Alice had been getting hormone shots for years, same as me and Edward. I had seen Alice's new balls once during an exam, and although they were in, they looked funny. Dad even said she needed another surgery down there to fix it and make it look normal. My balls had come in looking pretty normal and in front of my vagina, with the lips of my labia overlapping only slightly with my ball sack. But Alice's balls had come in split in two, one on each side of her vagina. Although her balls were slightly higher up, so the two did not completely overlap.

"Well then I guess we just have to wait," I said holding my sister.  
>Over the years, Alice and I had grown really close, although like any siblings, we still fought. Alice was my replacement for Lily and Daisy, because I had not seen them since by thirteenth birthday. And even before then, I hardly ever got to see them. But Alice was always here and has always been there for me when I needed to talk.<p>

So I grabbed my book and read with Alice in her room, while we waited for Jasper and Dad to come home. I was still in seventh grade, so I still had reading homework, even though it was summer. But in the fall, I would finally be caught up and get to go to eighth grade at the public school like everyone else. Our town was so small that seventh and eighth grades were combined with the high school, so Emmett, who was in ninth grade, would even be going to the same school. And Edward, Jasper, and I would even have all of the same classes, mostly.

It was late at night before Dad and Jasper came home: it was seven and Mom had already served dinner. Jasper was bawling as if he had just been told he had cancer. He looked like he wanted to run up to his room and hide, but Dad made him go back to Dad's office instead. Dad was carrying a white bag from the pharmacy, so I figured he was going to make Jasper take some pills first or something.

Jasper was only in Dad's office for about five minutes before he ran out and up the stairs. I was about to go after him to comfort him, because he was my brother too, but Dad stopped me. "I want everyone in the living room for a family meeting," he said.

Once everyone but Jasper was gathered, Dad made his announcement, "The MRI did show a vagina, so Alice was correct. But it also showed a full set of female sex organs, including two ovaries. Jasper doesn't have Guevedoche like we thought. I'm running some tests to determine which condition he has, but nothing has change: Jasper's still your brother and is the same person, except he's very upset about the news so I would appreciate it if you'd all be supportive of him."

"So is he like Emmett?" Edward asked.

"Similar, but we won't know for certain for another week," Dad answered.

"What was in the bag?" I asked curiously.

"Jasper has a fused labia, which is hiding the vagina. Estrogen cream is the treatment. He's extremely embarrassed about it, so don't bring it up unless he does," Dad instructed.

"Can I go talk to him?" Alice asked.

"No. He doesn't want to talk to you and I'm very disappointed in how you handled that young lady: no one needs to hear news like that because their girlfriend is shouting it out for the world to hear. And Edward had company at the time! Jasper's therapy sessions had to be doubled," Dad answered.

"Oh no! He hates therapy!" Alice exclaimed.

"Oh yes. So I hope you think twice about what you're doing next time, young lady," my dad scolded. "Any more questions?"

Everyone shook their heads, so Dad said, "In that case, Edward I would like to talk to you in my office."

Mom went upstairs, probably to check on Jasper, and Edward followed Dad down the hall to his office, while Alice went to her room to sulk. Emmett and I looked at each other, and then he asked, "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That depends: I'm thinking that we should go listen in at the door," I replied and he nodded. Emmett and I really were meant to be best friends: we were always on the same page with things like spying on Edward's love life. Besides, it was Edward's fault Bella stuck her hand down my pants and I wanted some pay back: that was really embarrassing because Mom had been watching and I totally lost my cool.

The two of us tip-toed silently down the hall and put our ears to the bottom of the door. This house used to have carpet, but now it had wood flooring, so all of the doors were at least an inch off the ground: perfect for listening in. "How did it go today with Jacob? Any anal tearing?" we heard Dad's voice through the crack under the door.

"No, we didn't even have sex. We got to talking and looking through those books you left. We had oral using the dental dams and spent the rest of the time reading," Edward replied.

"Okay, well let me know how it goes when you do get around to it," Dad said.

Dad sounded very pleased with himself, like he had left the books just to distract Edward from going through with his plans. He probably did: Mom and Dad were sneaky like that. They never said we could not do something, but explained why it was a bad idea and then left it up to us. It back fired on them a lot, but it worked just as much. Plus it meant they still had our love and respect at the end of the day.

We heard shuffling, so Emmett and I backed away from the door and slowly walked back to the living room. As soon as we reached the couch, Emmett asked me, "Want to play video games?"

I agreed and we were already starting up the console when Edward came out with a red face like he had been blushing a lot recently. We asked him to join us and the three of us spent the rest of the night playing games together.

Life went back to normal, except now Dad reminded Jasper twice a day to use his cream. Whenever Dad said this, Jasper looked like he wanted to shoot someone, but instead he would trudge off to his room and fail to reappear. Sometimes I would hear him in there crying, but I did not know what to say, so I just tried to give him some space.

Monday morning, about a week later, Dad knocked on Jasper's door to remind him to use his cream, before heading downstairs to give the rest of us our shots. I had hit my snooze, so I was late getting downstairs, but I was just exiting my room when I heard Jasper screaming.

I knocked on his door and asked, "Are you okay Jasper? Can I come in?" He sounded like he was hurt or dying, so I was really worried about him.

"No! Just get Carlisle!" he yelled back through his locked door.

I ran downstairs and met my dad at the foot of the stairs: he must have already heard Jasper's screams. "Jasper wants you," I said as I went back up.

Jasper let Dad in, but I could still hear him crying. I tried to listen in, but all I heard was, "It's going to be okay Jasper. That's how it is supposed to look. You need to calm down."

By this time, Emmett had woken up and walked down the hall to where I was listening in. "What's going on?" he asked whispering.

"Jasper's freaking out about something, but I can't figure out what," I explained and he nodded.

We both put our ears to the door, but we never heard anything good. Instead we heard, "I'm gonna have one of your brothers sit with you and if you're still this upset in half an hour you can go in with me to the hospital and see Dr. Flynn."

So Emmett and I backed up and went to stand in my doorway to wait. "Is Jasper gonna be okay?" I asked as Dad came back out of his room.

"Yes, he's just upset about his labia unfusing. Emmett, will you sit with him while I give Russell and the others their shots?" Dad asked.

Emmett nodded and went into Jasper's room, while I walked down the stairs with Dad. Edward was there waiting, but Alice was not, so Dad went down the hall to her room. Edward and I followed and as soon as Dad opened her door, we could see her on the ground by her bed seizing. Dad went straight for Alice's bottle of pills and the glass of water that was always on her nightstand and helped Alice swallow the pills. It took a few minutes more, but she did eventually stop thrashing around and opened her eyes.

"What happened Alice?" Dad asked as he took her vitals and checked her over.

"I don't remember," she replied.

"Did you take your pill last night like you're supposed to?"

"Um…"

"Alice, this is important and I need to know. There are more pills in this bottle than there should be. So have you been taking your pills?"

"Well I know I took one Monday, before Jasper's meltdown. But if this is Wednesday, then I don't remember Tuesday," she answered groggily.

"This is Monday, Jasper's melt down was last week. You've been off your meds for a week," Dad said.

"No, that can't be right- Mom and I checked her meds yesterday, just like we always do, " Edward protested. "She had one empty bottle for last week and one full bottle for this week.

"This is last weeks bottle," Dad said, checking the date.

"Oh," Edward replied.

"Alice, I'm gonna have to take you in to the hospital with me. Are you gonna be alright if I leave you here to get ready?" Dad asked.

"I think so. Can I go back to my bed?" she asked.

"No, just stay on the floor in case you have another seizure. Russell will stay with you," Dad answered.

So Dad and Edward left and I stayed with Alice for five minutes until Edward came back to relieve me. Dad gave me my testosterone shot, before gathering up his medical bag and heading back to Alice's room. Edward and I held the doors open for them, as Dad carried Alice to the car. But as soon as we saw Dad drove off, Edward and I ran straight to Jasper's room.

He was in Emmett's arms and still crying, but he had calmed down a lot. "Can we come in?" I asked as we approached his door.

Jasper nodded so Edward and I joined Jasper and Emmett on the bed and we added our arms to the hug. "You know Jasper, this isn't the end of the world. We all have the same type of problem and you'll get used to it eventually," I said.

"And you know we all love you, no matter what is between your legs," Edward added.

"I like having a vagina," Emmett said.

"That may be a bit too much, Em," I told my brother.

Jasper did not reply, but he just sat there and let us hold him until Mom got up and asked what was going on. "Our little Jasper is growing up," Emmett answered.

"Oh and Alice had a seizure and Dad took her into the hospital with him," Edward added.

"Oh no," Mom said, before going to the kitchen and making us strawberry waffles for breakfast, because they were Jasper's favorite.

And Edward, Emmett, and I spent the entire day trying to cheer Jasper up, while Mom went into the hospital to check on Alice. Alice got to come home a few days later, but Dad said they needed to watch her medication a lot more closely now, because the date for Alice's surgery was coming up and if she had anymore seizures it would have to be canceled. So now Mom and Dad kept her pills locked up and only gave her one at a time and watched her take it.

Alice was not happy about the meds situation, but there was not anything she could do about it. If she stopped taking them, she would not be able to have her surgery this summer. And there did not seem to be anything she could do to fix the situation with Jasper either, because he still was not talking to her.

"You aren't the least bit upset that Jasper doesn't want this?" Edward asked her a few days after she came home, when Jasper was not around.

"He'll want it someday. Once I take his virginity and show him how good it feels, he'll like it. And how else were we ever going to have children?" Alice asked.

I had not even thought of that: I had just assumed that Mom and Dad would not be getting many grandchildren between the five of us. Emmett wanted to be a mother someday. And I was making low levels of sperm, so fatherhood was a possibility for me. But Edward was gay and I doubted he would have kids. And Alice and Jasper making babies with their two dicks never even crossed my mind.

"Do us a favor and don't mention that to him: he's crying enough as it is," Edward replied.

Having a fight like that between two of your siblings is awkward. I did not want to take sides and alienate either one of them. At first I spent more time with Jasper, because he needed us more and he was the victim in all of this. Although, was it really Alice's fault that Jasper did not have Guevedoche like we all thought?

But when the date of Alice's scheduled surgery arrived and Jasper was still not speaking to her, I switched sides. It was unlike him to stay away from Alice, especially when she needed him, but he just ignored her when she left for the hospital crying. I could tell from the shocked look on her face that she really thought he would not let her go alone until the very last minute, when she was in the car and Mom was already driving away without him. I felt so bad for her and just wanted to take her in my arms and hug her.

Alice's surgery was one of those fast outpatient things, so she was back that night, but she came back with a depressed, hollow look that I had never seen on her before; it seemed that Jasper's depression was spreading. She stayed in her room and moped for weeks, and fought with Mom and Dad everyday about taking her meds, because now that she had had the surgery, she did not care if she had another seizure.

But my problems were not limited to my home life, as one other issue kept popping to the forefront of my mind: Bella. Bella was still grounded from that day at the beach and I was not allowed to see her. But she was grounded for two entire months, so summer would be almost over before she would be ungrounded and I would be allowed to see her again.

I needed to talk to her now and I did not want to do so over the phone. So I decided to call up Chief Swan and tell him my problem. "Hello Charlie?" I asked when he picked up the phone.

"Russell, I'll go get Bella for you," he replied.

"No, I don't want to talk to Bella. I want to talk to you."

"Okay, shoot."

"I want to talk to Bella in person. I know that she plans on forcing me to have sex with her as soon as she's no longer grounded and I wanna tell her that's not gonna happen. But that's not the type of thing I can do over the phone," I explained.

"Are you breaking up with her?"

"No."

"Then I don't understand," he replied.

"Darwin, I'm not some ho she can have her way with! We have been dating almost two years, but I'm still only thirteen and she can't make me do something I'm not ready for."

"You know what? I like you Russell. You can come over and tell my daughter you don't want to sleep with her any time you want," he replied cheerfully. "Just keep Alice away: she's a bad influence."

"Alice hasn't left the house since her surgery. Besides, she's still grounded and on restriction, so there's no problem there."

"Is she alright?" he asked concerned. "Carlisle said that the surgery went well."

"She's fine. I'll ask my mom to drop me off later today. I'll see you then," I said before hanging up.  
>Mom agreed to drop me off at Bella's, so she gave me a ride over just after lunch. Charlie asked about Alice again, and I assured him that she was fine again, before he excused himself saying, "I'll just give you two some privacy," and headed upstairs.<p>

"Want to sit on the couch?" Bella asked walking me over to the couch. "I can't believe Charlie let you come over. What did you tell him to get him to let you see me?"

"The truth. He was so pleased with what I had to say that he said I can come over any time I want. I think he would trade kids right about now," I answered.

"Is he still that mad at me?"

"Yep. I'm upset with you too."

"You? Why?"

"Well you think that I'll just agree to let you do whatever you want to me. I'm not going to let you push me around anymore. I'm putting my foot down: I'm not ready to have sex and that's final. If you want to break up with me because I won't put out then that's up to you. But I'm not some hooker off the street that you can pay to turn tricks."

"I had no idea you felt that way!" Bella exclaimed with tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry if I've been treated you like that. We don't have to do anything you're not ready for."

"I'm not saying never. I'm just not ready now. We haven't even had oral yet."

"Oh. Did you want that?" she asked me like the thought had never crossed her mind. How could someone be planning sex and never thought about oral? That just did not make sense to me.

"Well if you don't want to go down on me, then I'll understand. But you could at least let me go down on you first."

"Sure. We can do both. Just as soon as I'm no longer grounded."

"You mean it?" I asked.

"Yes: I love you Russell. I want our first time to be perfect. If you're not ready, then it won't be," she answered before leaning in for a kiss.

I returned the kiss and we were making out when Charlie came back down the stairs clearing his throat. "I thought you said you did not want to have sex with my daughter?" he asked me.

"I just told her that and she agreed to wait. That was a make-up slash agreeing not to have sex kiss," I answered.

"Well then carry on," he replied going into the kitchen.

But I was too nervous about kissing Bella in front of her father, so I did not kiss her again. Instead we put on a movie and she cuddled into my arms to watch.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Next up will be Jasper's POV of what happened...<p> 


	36. Chapter 35

Jasper's POV:

I was in my room reading a book with my door open when my world flipped upside down. I heard the love of my life shouting at the top of her lungs that I had a vagina and that she was planning on sticking her dick in it on our wedding night. Maybe she did not say it like that, but it sure came across that way.

And I did not even have a vagina! I had no idea what Alice was talking about, but just that she had accused me of having one and had announced to the world what she wanted to do to me was bad enough and I started crying; I just could not help myself. I loved her more than anything, but when she treats me this way, sometimes I wonder if she loves me the same way. I would do anything for her and all she had to do was ask. If she really wanted to use her penis on me, then I probably would let her, but not until we grew up, because I was only eleven.

I had lived with Edward long enough to know what two boys did together and I had seen plenty of gay couples to be comfortable with the idea. I was still too young to have put much thought into it, but it never really bother me that Alice was biological male. But even if I would be willing to do that with Alice someday, that in no way gave her the right to tell the whole world now! I was so embarrassed that she had told everyone that I just could not keep myself from sobbing.

And when Russell and Emmett came in and asked what was wrong, I could not even bring myself to repeat what Alice had said. I was still bawling when my aunt came upstairs and said she was taking us to see my uncle at the hospital. She was really mad at Alice, so I assumed it was so that Carlisle could punish her, while I would probably end up in therapy, again.

I hate therapy. Dr. Flynn always wants to talk about how I am feeling. I wish I could just show her how I feel like I do Alice. I try not to use my gift with anyone else, because it is bad enough that the whole family knows that Alice is a psychic, but with my emotional seepage, we really are a couple of freaks. I guess we are just made for each other like that.

But despite how much I hated telling Dr. Flynn how I was feeling, I was feeling so horrible that I thought she might actually make me feel better for once, so I went with my aunt willingly. And I was correct in that the first thing my aunt did was drop Alice off with my uncle for a lecture. The second thing she did was to drop me off with Dr. Flynn. I choked out a very brief description of what Alice said in between sobs and then spent the next hour listening to Dr. Flynn try to tell me it would be alright as I continued to cry. I was doing so much crying that she did not even expect answers or responses to her questions, so the session went better than usual.

I almost believed Dr. Flynn that no one would think any less of me because of what Alice had said. She knew how Alice lived in the future and talked about us having sex even though we had not even kissed on the lips yet. She assured me that everyone would realize that Alice was talking future tense and no one would think I was a slut for sleeping with her even though I was only eleven.

Dr. Flynn told me that I had nothing to worry about and that everything would be alright for another half an hour before my uncle came for me. I had thought this would mean he was done yelling at Alice and my aunt was ready to take me home. But instead he said, "Esme already took Alice home. I scheduled an MRI in Port Angeles just so that we can have some pretty pictures of your insides to show Alice to prove that you don't have a vagina. How does that sound?"

"Can't you just look?" I asked holding back my sobs.

"Well I already have looked. I even showed Alice the pictures in your file: I'm sorry about that by the way. But she was very insistent that that isn't how you look in her visions. And we never have done all of the usual tests on you because you have always been so healthy. Your blood work did not even confirm Guevedoche, although that's not really conclusive, because false negatives are very common. So I think we might as well do the MRI now," he answered.

I nodded my head and followed him to the car. What could an MRI hurt? I had no way of knowing at the time that the answer would be everything. That one MRI would ruin my entire life. That one test could change my life so completely and change my gender from a boy to a girl. Uncle Carlisle always said that we were whichever sex we wanted to be and I have never felt more grateful for this fact than when he showed me the results of my MRI. He showed me how there were two ovaries, two fallopian tubes, a uterus, and one vagina inside of me. And I was shocked.

We were in an exam room in the hospital in Port Angeles, so he asked me to take off my pants and underwear and get on the exam table for him. I was so shocked that I was numb and I do not even remember undressing. I do remember him telling me I had a fused labia. And I wish I did not remember the part about the estrogen cream treatment.

"Why do we have to expose it? Why can't we just leave it?" I asked calmer than I felt and running out of tears.

"Well there are a number of reasons. The fused labia will probably unfuse in a year or two with puberty anyway, but if it doesn't unfuse, then you will need surgery. The sooner we know that you need surgery, the better, and that's the major reason why we need to try the cream now."

"Can't you just cut it out?" I asked.

"Yes, and I've always said that I'd leave any surgical decisions up to you kids, but I don't think you're thinking clearly about this. You just found out and you're upset. You need to think this through for a few years before removing it," he answered.

"I'm still not gonna want it in two years," I warned.

"That's fine, as long as you agree to the estrogen cream now."

"What if I don't?"

"I'm both your doctor and your legal guardian: I can legally force you."

"You wouldn't."

"I would," he replied giving me such a stern look that I had no doubt that this cream was not up for debate.

I agreed and Carlisle drew my blood for some test of his, before taking me home. I thought that I was all cried out, but I was wrong because I started bawling in the car on the long ride home. The tears only poured down harder when we stopped at the pharmacy to get my cream.

That night Carlisle made me go into his office, to make sure that I was doing it right and to make sure that I did it at all. I would not have used it, but I was pretty sure that I would get caught if I did not comply. My uncle was pretty lenient on most things, but not on medical issues, so for the next week every time he ordered me to use it, I did.

It still had not sunk in what the cream was supposed to do. So when I woke up one morning and went to rub the cream on myself, I was utterly shocked to find that my skin had split open. I screamed and Russell heard and he sent Carlisle in to help me. But Carlisle just kept trying to tell me that that red puffy gash in my genital region was how it was supposed to look. He said that the gash was just my labial lips and that they were red and swollen from the cream, but now that they were separated I could stop using it.

I really did not believe him that woman really looked this gross down there. I had never seen one before, but if this was it, count me out. Alice could keep her vaginal sex, both kinds, because I decided right then and there that I wanted nothing to do with vaginas. I did not even go with Alice when she had to have her surgery.

It was just a short outpatient procedure to cut the last little bit of skin that had been left from her first surgery when she was a baby, because her labial fusion had covered her urethra. Missing urethras are something that doctors do not miss and they were forced to operate at birth. I knew I should have gone, but I was still just too mad at Alice and too grossed out by vaginas in general, so I made her go alone. Esme and Carlisle were with her, but still I saw her red-rimmed eyes as she silently accused me of letting her down, knowing that I had been the one she wanted holding her hand.

Eventually I calmed down, but I did not change my mind about the vagina and I did not forgive Alice. Weeks later the swelling went down and it went back to its normal color, but I was still grossed out whenever I looked at the slimy slit under my dick. It oozed clear fluid onto to my boxers for weeks and Carlisle said that it was a side effect from the cream and would go away.

But with all things, my anguish over my body faded with time. I did not grow to love and accept myself, but I became used to the idea that this was my life and I was stuck with it for a few years until I could convince Carlisle to perform surgery. And the best way I could do that was to try to show my uncle that I was calm, collected, and had given a great deal of thought to what I was doing.

I put a great deal of effort into showing him how mature I was when he came home with my blood tests results. He told the rest of the family that I had something called tetragametic chimerism, and after giving them a brief description of what that meant, he asked me to come back into his office with him. I calmly followed him and took my usual seat on his couch.

He pulled up his chair in front of me and began his explanation, "Tetragametic chimerism means that when you were conceived, there were two eggs. Each egg was fertilized by separate sperm, forming two separate zygotes. Normally, this results in fraternal twins. But, sometimes the two zygotes fuse, forming one embryo and any mixture of the two cell types is possible. When this happens, the two cell types cooperate to form a fully functional completely normal person. But when the two cell types are different genders, one being male and the other female, it often results in ambiguous genitalia, because one cell type is trying to make the body into a girl, while the other one is sending out instructions to make a boy.

"We were never able to confirm Guevedoche, but it just fit so well that I'd assumed that was it. You've never had any health problems, so I thought the annual check-ups would be enough. I really should have done the MRI sooner: I'm sorry I missed this," he admitted.

"So how do you know that I was two embryos?" I asked, deflecting his apology, because I was not ready to deal with it yet.

"The genetic tests came back showing two different cell types. The cell types are related, consistent with being full siblings. And the karyotyping came back with two karyotypes: 46, XX and 46, XY. It appears that the majority of your body is composed of the 46, XY type cell, because you mostly appear male. But, if you look more closely, you'll notice that you have two hair colors. While most of your hair is honey blond, you have chestnut brown hairs interspersed," he stated handing me a mirror and indicating the rare brown hairs. I guess that explains why people are always asking me if I dye my hair. I just thought I had a cool shade of blond.

"You also have two eye colors. Most of your eyes are brown, but there are splotches of blue here, here, and here," he said indicating the blue spots in my eyes that my mother had always said were pretty and made me special. "It can be even more noticeable if the cell types have different skin colors. Luckily, you don't have that problem, but if we expose your skin to UV light, we should still be able to make out the signature Blaschko's lines."

Then Carlisle pulled out a weird looking flashlight from his desk and turned off the lights. He flipped the switch and the purple light came on. The first thing I noticed was the "S" shaped whorls over my chest. Then Carlisle held up another mirror, and pointed to the mirror in my hands. He helped me position it so that I could see the "V" shape over my back.

"Wow! That's really cool!" I exclaimed, forgetting about how upset I had been just minutes before. Now that my genitals were not involved, I was not freaked out and having secret patterns on my skin that were only visible under UV light sounded really awesome. In fact, I could totally see myself as one of the X-men in Emmett's comic books: Jasper, the empath, with UV reactive skin.

"The lines are from the migration of embryonic skin cells during development. This path is followed in all people, but can't be detected because the cells are identical, like white on white. In you, however, the cells are slightly different, so we can see it under UV light."

"That's pretty cool, but I still want all of the female parts removed," I stated calmly.

"Jasper, you do know that you're incapable of ever producing sperm, don't you? Your ovaries are your only chance of ever having children. If you don't want to carry them yourself, you can get a surrogate. Alice is making sperm, so the two of you could make children together someday! I'd never thought it was a possibility for the two of you, but now that it is, are you really that eager to throw it all away?" he asked me, piercing my eyes with his intense stare.

"I never thought of that. Could we leave the ovaries and remove the rest?" I asked.

"Yes, but it would be easiest to collect the eggs for _in vitro_ if you left the fallopian tubes. And I'm still not going to perform a life changing major surgery on an eleven year old. You can at least wait until you're sixteen," he replied.

"I thought you said two years!" I shouted, losing my cool.

"My exact words were a few. And I talked to your aunt and we agreed on sixteen."

"We'll see," I said thinking about all of the ways I could force him to perform surgery on me sooner. If I stabbed myself in the uterus he would have to remove it.

"Jasper, if you keep thinking like that I'll have to call up Dr. Flynn. There are worse things than outpatient therapy sessions, such as longer stays in mental institutions," he warned. My emotions must have leaked and given me away.

"Fine," I replied gruffly before excusing myself to my room. It looked like I really was going to have to wait four and a half years to have my birth defect removed.

Although I agreed not to hurt myself at the time, it was a promise that I was just not able to keep. A few months later I was taking shower in the evening and washing my dick when it happened: I just snapped. I took one look at my pussy lips and could not take it anymore.

I stepped out of the shower and opened the bathroom drawer looking for something to make me feel better, but all I found was Emmett's shaving supplies. Emmett was fourteen and had just started shaving. I thought about removing one of the blades from the razor, but they did not have a good handle. Then I grabbed the pair of scissors that was in the drawer, but they were not sharp enough.

Then I noticed the ceramic toothbrush holder. Ceramic is like glass, so I picked it up and smashed it against the granite counter top. It shattered into several shards, so I picked up the sharpest one and went back into the shower. I spread my legs, lifted up my penis, and slashed at the puffy pink lips that kept staring at me. But it hurt so bad that I screamed and I had not even done any real damage. Sure I was bleeding, but not much and it definitely was not enough to get rid of the thing.

Russell must have heard me, because thirty seconds later he was banging on the bathroom door. "Jasper! Are you alright? What happened: did you fall?"

"I'm fine," I lied. "I just got soap in my eyes."

He believed me, but Alice must have seen me and told, because Esme came running up the stairs and pounded on the bathroom door. "Open this door this instant young man! Alice told me what you're doing in there!" she yelled.

I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my waist, before opening the door. "How bad is it?" she asked taking the ceramic shard from my hand.

"Barely bleeding: it wasn't sharp enough," I answered shrugging.

"Show me," she ordered. I had never shown her my privates before, because Carlisle was the doctor, so I refused. "Show me right now where you cut yourself and how badly you're bleeding or I'm calling nine-one-one. Carlisle isn't here, so you have to show me."

I turned my head away, so that I would not have to see her look, and then I opened my towel.

"I can't see it," she replied. So I spread my legs and lifted up my penis. "Okay, you're bleeding, but not much. You can close your legs."

"Can I finish my shower?" I asked.

"No. You can get dressed so I can take you to the hospital to see your uncle, now that I know you'll survive the car ride. Russell, come watch Jasper get dressed and don't let him near anything sharp," she replied picking up all of the large pieces of ceramic shards and throwing them in the trash can. Then she grabbed the broom and dust pan and started sweeping.

I went with Russell and picked out some clothes. I thought I had done a really good job, because I had picked jeans and a shirt, which was a combo Emmett said could not go wrong. But Russell just shook his head and said, "You're gonna need something more comfortable with a cut down there." Then he pulled out some sweat pants. "Put those on."

I pulled on my shirt first, because my door was still open, so I did not want to take the towel off from my waist. I grabbed my boxers and pulled them up, but it hurt really badly, and I hissed at the contact.

"Here, put this gauze between you and the material, it should help," my aunt said coming into my room and offering me some gauze. She must have gone down to my uncle's office to get it. I complied and as soon as my pants were up, Russell handed me a pair of shoes, which I slipped on. Then the two of them escorted me down the stairs, stopping at the front door. None of my siblings were insight, but I could hear crying from Alice's room.

"Emmett!" Esme called out and waited for him to emerge from Alice's bedroom.

"Yeah Mom?"

"You're in charge. Russell's going to help me take Jasper to the hospital," Esme instructed before ushering me and Russell to the car.

Russell watched me the whole way to the hospital and he even held my hand while Carlisle stitched me up. "Jasper, if you ever feel like hurting yourself again I need you to let me know _before_ you go through with it. And if I'm not around, you can tell anyone: Esme, Russell, Emmett, Edward, and even Alice. You can't just go around hurting yourself because you don't like part of your body. I promised that I'd remove it, but you have to give it time. Now I'd like to send you home, but I don't believe that you'll be safe there. What if you cut yourself again?" he asked me.

"I won't," I said looking him in the eyes and knowing that that was what he wanted to hear. Personally, I had no idea what I would and would not do in the future: I was not Alice.

"I wish I could believe you, Jasper, I really do. But I also know that you're an excellent liar, so Esme is going to drop you off at the psych ward over in Port Angeles for me and I'll be by first thing in the morning after I finish the graveyard shift. I wish we had more facilities here, but this hospital is just too small."

"You're locking me up? You can't do this to me!" I yelled outraged. Carlisle always just treated us at home for little things.

"I'm not a psychiatrist Jasper: I don't know how to treat you. I'm sorry. Are you going to go willingly?"

"Do I have a choice?" I asked.

"Well if you don't cooperate I could sedate you and call an ambulance to transfer you to the other hospital. But ambulance rides are expensive and that money could be better spent on genital surgeries," he warned.

We were now a family of seven and he and my aunt barely made enough money to cover all of our expenses, because of the copious medical bills my siblings tended to rack up. But even so, we were still rich, because Uncle Carlisle had inherited a ton of money from his parents when they died, plus his cousins were rich and had even given him our house. I knew that we had enough money for both, but this was clearly a warning that if I did not cooperate, I would be stuck with the offensive organs longer.

"Fine, I'll go," I conceded reluctantly. "Do I have to stay there alone?"

"Well if any of your siblings are willing to stay overnight with you at a mental institution, then you're welcome to take her along," he replied.

I did not miss the fact that he had used the pronoun, "her." He was obviously implying Alice was the only one who would be willing to go with me. I had not really talked to Alice much since finding out about my vagina and although time had not made me accepting of said vagina, I no longer blamed Alice for it. She did not make me this way. All she ever did was love me the way I was.

Alice would love me despite what I had just done to myself. She would gladly go with me to the hospital, if just to spend time with me and I knew she missed me a lot. I had heard her crying enough in the past two months to know that she was extremely upset over the distance I was keeping between us. I knew I was hurting her, but I had been hurting too badly myself to care.

"Can I call Alice?" I asked.

"Always sweetie," Esme said getting up from her chair in the corner and handing me her cell.

I took the phone and dialed our house number. Alice picked up before it even rang. "You've kept me waiting a long time," she greeted me.

"Sorry Ma'am. Would you care to accompany me to a luxurious four-star nut-house?" I asked.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world. I only wish they'd let me bring a pretty dress to wear for you to go with that lovely set of matching gowns we'll have."

"You're gonna be a patient too?" I asked surprised. I thought she would just be there as my guest, holding my hand.

"Guests aren't permitted overnight visits. Esme'll just check me in because my epilepsy is acting up: I've been seizing all day. It started when I seized that the love of my life was gonna take a sharp object to his precious body."

"Sorry about that," I replied blushing. "But why didn't you stop me before I did it?"

"You didn't decide to do it until a minute before you did. It took me that long to find and explain to Esme what was happening. I'm still not allowed up on the second floor, but I would've broken that rule if I'd seen that I would've been able to get through the door. But all I saw was you hurting yourself worse if I tried," she answered and I knew she was right: I would have cut myself more if it were her on the other side of that door.

Esme stopped back by the house to pick up Alice and drop off Russell before admitting me into the psych ward in the city. I had been to this hospital many times before, because I used to go to therapy here, but I had never been admitted here.

Alice and I got adjoining rooms, at Esme's insistence: she said that we were siblings and the same sex, whatever sex that was. The doctor looked at her funny for a few moments until she explained that we were both intersexed and gender identity was one of the issues I was having trouble with. I asked that we be placed in the boy's ward, but once the doctor found out that I had cut my pussy, he put both me and Alice in the girl's ward. Apparently caring for injured vaginas is something they do not know how to do in the boy's ward.

Once Alice and I got settled in wearing our matching gowns, Esme left, and Alice came into my room. "I'm so glad you're talking to me again Jazz," she said leaning her head against my shoulder and hugging me.

"Me too," I admitted pulling her with me to my bed.

"Can I see what you did? I mean: how bad is it?" she asked me with a concerned look in her eyes.

"It's nothing. I think Carlisle was overreacting with all of those stitches," I replied, but laid back and pulled up my gown anyway. Alice would love me no matter what, even if I had stitches down there.

"Promise me you'll never do that again!" she demanded beginning to cry.

"I promise," I answered, and this time I meant it. I would do anything she asked of me, even if it meant leaving those horridly pink lips there for a few years.

"What're you two doing?" a nurse asked walking into my open room.

"I'm his sister," Alice fibbed pulling my gown down. "I wanted to see how badly he cut himself this morning. I just made him promise not to do that ever again."

"You two don't look like sisters," the nurse commented pulling out my chart.

"We're adopted," Alice explained. "When my Jazzy started hurting himself, I started seizing, so Mom dropped us both off."

"Oh, you two are the intersexed sisters the doctor was just telling me about," the nurse replied putting my chart back. "You're gonna help me make sure little Jasper doesn't hurt herself again, aren't you?"

"Yep: I was the one who told Mom he was doing it in the first place. He only got one cut in before Mom stopped him."

"Then you're a good big sister. Now just make sure you watch her like a hawk, especially in the bathroom," she replied.

I'm not sure when, but sometime in the past two and a half years since I met Alice, she had almost caught up to me in height. As a consequence, people no longer just assumed that I was older anymore. "Excuse me, but I'm the older brother. And I go by 'he,' despite the pussy. I'm gonna get that removed someday," I informed this nurse.

"Oh Jazz, don't say that! I love you and your pussy! I promise you it didn't look weird or gross: it looked beautiful, just like the rest of you," Alice pleaded.

"Well I can make a note to use the male gender with you, Jasper. You must be very lucky to have a sister who loves you so much," the nurse said before leaving me and Alice alone in my room.

"Jasper, I know you don't like your vagina now. But I want you to know, that in my visions, it's not me liking your va-jay-jay, it's you: you honestly grow to like it. You'll get over how it looks and love how it _feels_, because it's half of your genitalia. Please promise me you'll keep an open mind and try it once before cutting it away," she pleaded.

"I don't know."

"Emmett says it feels really good."

"What? Who did Emmett um, you know?" I asked curious. I had only ever seen Emmett kiss one girl and I had not thought that they were that serious.

"Some cousin of Jacob's named Seth, but they didn't go all the way. They were only touching," Alice replied shrugging.

"A boy?" I asked surprised. "I thought he liked Kim!"

"He likes both: he's bi, but don't tell him that yet. He needs to figure it out for himself.

"Wow," I replied lying back and thinking about all of this information. Emmett was bi and liked it when a boy touched him. "Are Emmett and Seth together? Like together together?"

"No. Seth liked Emmett, but he just was not feeling the vagina thing. He couldn't get over it, so they haven't seen each other since that one time at Jacob's house. That's why Emmett never told anyone."

"You mean this happened that time Edward wanted to go over to Jacob's house and Carlisle sent Emmett to supervise?"

"Yep."

"You know it's your birthday next week. You never told me what you wanted," I said changing the subject.

"All I want is you," she replied hugging me and kissing me on the cheek.

"Okay, well now that you've got me, what else do you want?" I asked kissing her cheek in return.

"Nothing."

"What kind of party is Esme throwing?" I asked taking another tactic: if she would not tell me what she wanted, then I could get something to go along with the party theme.

"I'm not having one," she replied with a smile. She did not seem the least bit sad about this.

"Why not? Esme always throws you a party! And your grounding and restriction were supposed to end this week."

"I know and she offered, but I just didn't see me having a party this year. I didn't know why at the time, but now I do: we won't be out of here until after my birthday. We're even gonna miss the first two weeks of school."

When she said that, it suddenly clicked in my head what I had done: I had caused the love of my life to have to spend yet another birthday locked away in an insane asylum, all because I was not thinking and hurt myself. Hurting me was one thing, but hurting Alice was inexcusable and I could not allow it to happen again. I did not have to like it, but I would deal with the unwanted genitals until I was old enough for the surgery, if it meant Alice would not have to suffer.

"Thank you," she said with her eyes glazed over.

"What for?" I asked.

"The future just cleared up: you really aren't gonna cut yourself."

"Yeah," I replied sheepishly. "And I'm really sorry I didn't go with you when you had that surgery last month."

"It's okay Jazz. I know you were not ready to deal with anymore vagina issues at the time and mine was just one straw too many."

"But still, you've always been there for me and I let you down. I won't do it again," I promised looking into her eyes. "I love you too much to hurt you twice."

"I know and I love you too, but that was a seizer, which I have to report in these stupid places, so push your call button and let's get this over with," she replied annoyed.

I pushed the button and Alice informed the nurse of the microseizer. A doctor rushed in and checked her, but found nothing wrong with her, as usual. "Are you sure it was a seizer? You're already maxed out on anti-seizer meds," the doctor said when he was done with his exam.

"Yep, but those meds never work all the way for me. If you don't believe me, Jasper saw it," Alice answered.

"It was a very small short seizer, but it was a seizer. She saw me in it and everything," I replied.

"I always seize Jasper's face," Alice explained. "Seizing him is the first memory I have from when I was little."

"Okay, well it's late, so you two get some rest and I'll call Dr. Cullen about changing your meds," the doctor replied.

As soon as he left the room, Alice snuggled into my chest. Her eyes flickered shut for a moment and it was late, so I knew she was tired.

"My pussy hurts," I admitted, knowing that it was keeping me from sleeping. I should have told the doctor while he was still here, but I could not bring myself to say it in front of anyone besides Alice.

"I'll call the nurse and get you a numbing spray," Alice said extricating herself from my arms.

After the nurse came back with the spray, Alice applied it, and I finally felt comfortable enough to sleep. Then I pulled Alice into my arms and we fell asleep together.


	37. Chapter 36

Author's Note: Warning, contains lemons.

* * *

><p>Edward's POV:<p>

It had been a busy summer and fall for our entire family, including me. I had found my long lost best friend Jacob on my birthday. Jacob made me feel better about myself with the way he seemed to love me unconditionally, which was something I really needed after the way Bobby had dumped me months earlier. And after reading those books on gay sex, Jacob and I both decided to take things down a notch and wait awhile to have sex.

Russell had refused Bella sex, finally standing up for himself and telling her how he felt. But as soon as she got off grounding, she was over at our house in our garage giving Russell head. And with the way she gives head, Russell eventually changed his mind and caved to the sex idea. Last month, two full months after her birthday and her initial virginity taking plan, Bella succeeded in taking my brother to bed.

Russell was not the only one getting some: Emmett had kissed his first girl and boy, although as per his request, Jacob and I were keeping our mouths shut about Seth. It had happened one summer afternoon at Jacob's house when Seth came over and Mr. Black rolled outside to talk to Seth's father. It started off with Seth flirting with Emmett and had ended with the two of them pawing each other as they went into Jacob's bedroom.

Jacob and I peeked in to see what they were doing, and I clearly saw Seth's hand moving between Emmett's legs, so Jacob and I went back out to the living room and distracted the adults until the two lovebirds finished. Emmett came back out with a red face and a goofy grin, but Seth came out admitting that it was weird for him: he just was not comfortable with the vagina no matter how hard he tried.

Jasper had discovered his vagina and broke up with Alice. He hated his body so much he tried to cut himself, but that only led to him getting back together with Alice and a month's stay in the loony bin. The two of them even missed the first two weeks of class, so Russell and I had to explain to all of our fellow students just where our little brother was and why. My dad had already called the school and explained to our teachers what was going on, so at least we did not have to deal with them too.

Most of our teachers wondered how an eleven year-old was going to keep up with eighth grade classes when he missed the first two weeks because of mental illness, but Jasper was smart enough that he came back to school and did not miss a beat. But a rumor started going around school that the reason Jasper had been homeschooled for the past two years was because he was crazy. So it looked like Emmett, Russell, and I were in for a year of defending our little brother while at school. Russell did not seem to mind, because he was just so happy to be going to a real school again: the last time he had gone to a public school was kindergarten. Russell was so unfamiliar with regular school that Mom told me to stay by him at all times to make sure that he does not break any of the rules on accident or get picked on.

Emmett helped me as much as he could with watching out for Russell, but Emmett was a grade older and only had one class with him: math. Russell had always been a grade further along in math than in English, and Jasper had been able to keep up with the advanced math curriculum, so Russell, Emmett, and Jasper all had ninth grade algebra together. Math was the one class that I did not have with any of my brothers, because I was still in eighth grade math.

And although I had Jasper and Russell in almost all of my classes, there was someone else I kept wishing was in my classes: Jacob. But Jacob went to school on the reservation, so there was no chance that I would ever get to see him during school hours. Although, not having Jacob around did make it easier for me to act straight, because I had trouble keeping my hands off of him when we were together.

Jacob and I had been together for six months now, and life was finally normal again now that Jasper and Alice were home, although their return did come with new responsibilities. Now not only did I have to keep an eye on Russell at school, but I had the much harder task of keeping an eye on Jasper. Russell was at least trying to fit in and knew most of the rules, but Jasper was not even trying.

Jasper was not cutting himself and I never had to take a sharp object from him, but the look he had in his eyes when he would catch the gleam off of a blade was frightening: I could tell he was thinking about it, wishing that he could cut himself again. The first time I saw that look, I asked him about it. "What are you thinking Jasper?"

"Nothing… just wishing I could cut it out. But don't worry, I won't act on it," he replied drooling at the steak knife.

The next time I caught him with the look, it was over a pair of scissors in history class. "Stop thinking about it!" I hissed hitting him on the arm. Russell noticed and gave me a questioning look, but no one else noticed.

After that, every time I saw the look I just hit Jasper on the arm and gave him a look that said, "Stop it."

Over time the frequency which I would catch Jasper with the look decreased and I began to believe that he was getting better. The sight of a sharp object no longer seemed to make him want to cut himself. And when he did get those urges, he never once acted on them. I asked him once what made him so strong that he could fight off his deepest desire and he answered, "Alice. It would hurt Alice, so I won't do it again."

And as Jasper got better, our family life calmed down and I began to focus more of my attention on Jacob. Our six month anniversary was coming up, so Jacob and I were starting to think about taking our relationship to the next level. We had each tried the home enema kits, the anal douches, and had practiced fingering each other, so we were much more prepared to go through with anal sex than we had been that first day we planned it.

Jacob and I both found that we liked being fingered. It took a little practice learning to relax our bodies enough to enjoy the sensation, but eventually, we each found the other's prostate and there was no going back from there. Having Jacob finger my prostate was the best experience of my life: one swipe would have me hard instantly. And trying not to cum with Jacob's mouth on my cock and his finger pressed into my gland was just impossible.

Today was our six month anniversary, so I was really hoping that I would be able to hold out for a little longer today; I wanted to make the wonderful feeling last, just like I wanted our relationship to last. Jacob and I had agreed that our six month anniversary would be the perfect day to lose our virginities, but there was just one thing we were in disagreement about and that was who should go first.

I wanted to be an exclusive bottom and Jacob knew that and was having none of it. He was so convinced that I would back out and not reciprocate once he agreed to top me that he was insisting that I top first. I had done all of the reading on it, same as him, and I had been practicing finding his prostate with my finger, same as him, so we were both equally prepared to top and it looked like I was going to have to go through with it.

I kept telling myself that this was what Jacob wanted and it was not fair to not reciprocate. I knew I should do it, but psyching myself up to do it was a challenge. I spent all of my therapy sessions in the last month talking to Dr. Flynn about my apprehension topping. She thought it would be good for me to top, because she thought my problem with topping came from an inferiority complex resulting from my micropenis.

My dad even liked the idea of me topping, but I think that was just because he was worried that Jacob might hurt me if he topped. Dad kept worrying about Jacob's large size tearing my virgin hole. I was worried about that too, but what could I do? I loved Jacob and he was the one I wanted to be with. We had spent months trying to stretch my opening to better accommodate him, but ultimately there was only so much preparations that could be made and we would eventually just have to try it.  
>So that leads me back to losing my virginity today with Jacob. He would take mine, but I would have to take his first. It was Christmas break, so we all had the day off from school and I was waiting for Jacob to arrive. I was in the living room with Russell and Emmett, sitting on the couch and telling myself I could do this.<p>

"You'll be fine," Emmett reassured me as we heard the Black's loud Chevy pull up.

"He'll love it no matter what because you're his Tinker Bell," Russell added as I got up to answer the door.

"Thanks guys," I said before opening the door. It was a chilly winter day, so I grabbed my coat and pulled it on as I went. "Hey Spider Monkey. Is your dad leaving already?"

"Yep. Bye Dad," he called waving to the truck that had just finished executing a U-turn in our driveway.

"Be safe you two," Mr. Black called before driving away.

"What's in the bag Spider Monkey?" I asked taking his hand and eyeing the brown paper bag. Normally it was my parents who gave out the bags of condoms.

"Your parents gave my dad a few bags to keep at our house, but he wanted to make sure we were extra prepared today, so he made me take it. He was worried we wouldn't make it to the garage or something," he replied shrugging before taking me into his arms. I do not know how we could possibly not make it, because it was much too cold for outdoor loving today.

We walked side-by-side, with our arms around each other, to the garage. We separated to climb the ladder, but once we were both at the top, Jacob wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me to his chest, while crushing his lips to mine. We slowly made our way towards the bed, discarding clothing as we went, as we made-out. I reached around and turned the space heater down to medium, without breaking the kiss; I had turned it on half an hour ago when Jacob called to say he was on his way, right before I had used the anal douche in the loft bathroom. I wanted everything to be perfect today.

Once our clothes were off, Jacob pushed me down onto the bed, before going to my cabinet. I saw him place his bag on the counter, while he grabbed the small condoms from my side and the lube from his side, before coming back to me. He rolled the condom down on my shaft and kneeled over my stomach with his erection directly in front of my face. It was so close, I wanted to reach my tongue out and lick it, but he had not brought me a dental dam, so I kept my tongue to myself.

I watched Jacob as he poured lube onto his fingers, before his hand disappeared behind himself: he was preparing himself for me and he must have already douched at his own house, as we had agreed. He was moaning and withering on top of me before I could not take it anymore and stopped him. "Lie down," I instructed, reaching up to still his arm.

"Anything for you my Tinker Bell," he replied leaning down to steal a quick kiss before flopping onto the bed next to me. He was lying on his back with his knees up and his legs spread for me, so I got up and kneeled between his legs. He lifted up off of the bed and I put a pillow underneath him, to adjust the angel, just as we had read in the book.

Once I was ready, I took my sheathed penis in my hand and guided it to his entrance. I paused to look at his deep brown eyes and he begged, "Please Tink? I need you so bad."

So I slowly pushed my head inside, but I could see Jacob tensing in pain, so I stopped and just held it there. While I waited for him to adjust, I grabbed his penis in my other hand and started stroking. It had been hard and pulsing for me before I entered him, but the pulsing had stopped and I feared that the erection might start to subside if I did not give him some attention.

Jacob responded immediately to my touch, moaning with every stroke. He was bucking his hips up into my fist and trying to push his hips further down onto my cock, before he spoke again. "Please my Tinker Bell. I need this," he begged in between moans.

I pushed in slowly, only entering him by another inch, before I slowly pulled back out again, leaving just the head inside him. Then I pushed in again, before repeating the process. The third time, I pushed in even further, before pulling back out again. And by the fifth time, I was all the way inside him. I held myself there and rolled my hips, trying to reach his prostate. After all, stimulating my Jacob's prostate was what this exercise was about.

"Oh Tink! You feel so big my pixie," Jacob moaned. With the way he was withering underneath me, I figured I must be hitting his spot. So I stayed like that and rolled my hips a few more times, while I took his cock back into my hands to stroke.

I liked the feeling of my penis surrounded by his tight hot ass, but I tried not to think about that: this was about him. I was in control and I was going to do everything in my power to make the man I loved have the most intense orgasm of his life. And the feel of Jacob's pulsing member was exquisite.

I was mesmerized by the precum leaking from his tip and the way he kept bucking his hips underneath me. He seemed to be alternating between trying to force his ass down further on my cock and trying to push his dick up into my hand. I probably should have kept fucking him, but watching him squirm was too good, so I just held still and enjoyed the show.

I think I would have watched him forever like that, but then he begged, "Please fuck me Tinker Bell. You're the only one I ever want to fuck me. You feel so good in me: please fuck me and make me yours."

"Stroke yourself so I can watch," I said handing off his penis to my partner's capable hands. I grabbed his hips and pulled them towards me as close as I could get as I rolled my hips into him one last time. Then I pulled out and pushed back in slowly once, before beginning to pound him in earnest. I set a medium paced rhythm, making sure to roll my hips at the end of every thrust.

I was fairly certain I was getting his prostate by the way he was moaning, but I just had to ask. "Am I getting it Spider Monkey?" I asked in between grunts.

Jacob's answer was an unintelligible series of moans and grunts, but he nodded, so I took that as an affirmative and continued. After about five minutes, he picked up the pace on his cock and cried out, "Faster and harder Tink! So good! I need you so much!"

I could tell he was getting close, so I picked up the speed and slammed into him as hard and fast as I could. I lost my rhythm as I became lost in the feeling of the tight ass clenching around me. His muscles clenched down on me a few times before he yelled and threw his head back. I thought he might be saying my name, Tinker Bell, but it was too garbled to tell for sure.

When I saw his cock spurting his release all over his stomach and felt the spasms of his ass around my dick, I felt my own orgasm coiling deep in my balls. I buried myself deep into his ass and leaned down to capture his lips. As I leaned down, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me tight against his chest.

I could still feel is ass spasming around my cock, but now I could also feel his cock twitching against my stomach and his wet semen gluing our bellies together. I could feel his arms wrapped tightly around me as I sat on the edge of my orgasm. But the one thing that pushed me over the edge was when Jacob whispered in my ear, "I love you Tinker Bell. Cum for me."

And I did: I emptied my balls into my condom as I was buried in that tight ass and being held by those tight arms. I was already in the perfect position, so we continued to lie like that after we were both spent. We even fell asleep like that: with my dick in his ass and his arms around me. I must have slipped out of him while we slept, because I woke up with my head on his shoulder and my limp dick pressed into his hip. The first thing I thought about when I came too was cleaning up the mess so that it would not get all over the place.

I crawled out of Jacob's arms and pulled out the baby wipes. I had Jacob's cum all over myself, so I wiped myself off before pulling the spent condom off and throwing it away. Then I wiped my dick, before bringing the wipes over to where Jacob still slept. "That tickles," Jacob said sleepily as I wiped the cum off of his chest.

The cum had gotten everywhere, especially trapped in his pubic hair and the soft patch of hair he had under his belly button, so he was fully awake by the time I finished cleaning up the mess. "Are you that eager for your turn Tink?" he asked smiling up at me.

"No, I just woke up and wanted to clean up this mess. Your cum was everywhere Spider Monkey," I said throwing away the last of the dirty wipes before rejoining him on the bed.

"Come here," he replied pulling me back into his arms. "I promise you I'm gonna make you feel as good as you made me. I don't know how you did it, but you hit my prostate with almost every thrust: you must be made for me."

"I studied hard. But I can't believe I was that good for you: I only have four and a half inches to work with," I said as he kissed the top of my head. I had had a growth spurt in the last few months and my penis had grown too.

"Don't talk like that Tink. Don't let me hear you putting down that magnificent organ that just brought me so much pleasure. They should make a mold of you to make dildos."

"Yeah right," I replied sarcastically.

"I'm serious Tinker Bell. I love you just the way you are. If your penis never grows another millimeter it'll always be enough for me," he said earnestly. Once I nodded, he crushed his lips back to mine and turned us over so that he was kneeled over my body.

We made out like that until we were both hard again, before he got up and went back over to our cabinets. This time he grabbed a condom from his side, and the lube and a dental dam from my side: looks like I am in for some oral fun before he begins.

He put his condom on first, before opening the dental dam and draping it over my erection. He knelt in between my legs as he poured my lube into his hand and applied it to my opening. He placed his mouth over the latex sheet covering my head before plunging his finger deep within my core. He went straight to my prostate, before adding another figure and starting to stretch me.

He had four fingers in me and I was panting and trying not to spill my load just on his fingers when he finally pulled out of me. He drizzled more lube onto his huge cock and spread it around, before saying, "Turn around Tink. Time to try out another position from that book."

I eagerly turned and got on all fours, spreading my legs and wiggling my ass to show him how eager I was. He quickly grabbed a towel and placed it under me, taking care so that we would not violate any of the garage rules; we often joked that violating the garage rules was against our religion, because we had no desire to be banned from this place. Then he slapped my ass gently, which I did not particularly like, but it was over quickly and he was pushing his head into my waiting hole. Jacob's head stretched me further than his fingers ever had, but I was prepared for the burn, so I just did my breathing exercises and tried to keep my body relaxed.

He kept pushing into me, without pulling out, until he was all the way inside me. I felt his cock brush my gland and continue passed it until he was even deeper within me. I was feeling so stretched and full that it was all I could think about. Jacob was huge and I was having trouble concentrating on things like keeping my legs under me to support my weight.

He must have notice me sagging, because he let go of his hold on my hips and wrapped his left arm under my arm pit and up around my right shoulder, hugging my arm to my body and my body to his and supporting our weight with his other arm. I leaned my head against the arm that he had wrapped around me, as he asked, "Hey, are you okay Tink? I didn't even start thrusting yet."

"Um…so big…can't think," I replied trying to tell him how this felt. It was like all of the blood had rushed down to my little head and none was left to perform higher functions not involving sex. The most complicated thing my brain seemed to be able to process was how good this felt: I kept feeling a tingling from my ass to my spine, as if I was ready to cum already.

"Okay, I'll go slow Tink, but you've got to stop me if I'm hurting you," he replied.

I nodded, so he pulled out slowly, without moving his upper body from its position wrapped around mine. I felt his warm arm around me and his ginormous cock inside me and the sensation was just too much and I could feel my fluids leaking from the tip of my untouched cock. The wet trickle down my penis was driving me crazy and I wanted to make contact with something, causing me to wither in his arms.

"Touch me. Please," I begged. My arms were crossed against my chest and being held tightly to my body by Jacob's arm. I did not want to move them, but at the same time I wanted to touch myself and I could not do that in this position.

When I tried to get my arms free, Jacob just held me tighter and said, "Stop wiggling Tink. I don't want you touching yourself: you're already too far gone. You need to calm down and back off of your orgasm, like the book says."

I knew he was right. We had both read the book and it said that making it last longer was worth it in the end. Even if I could get hard again and orgasm a second time, the orgasm would be harder, stronger, and more intense if I fought it off. So I settled for gripping Jacob's forearm tighter, which was something I could reach in this position.

After that I calmed down a bit and Jacob resumed his slow thrusting into my ass. He kept rolling his hips after he was already passed my prostate, which was driving me crazy. Did he not know he was missing it? He must not have, because he asked me, "How am I doing Tink? Am I getting it?"

"No. You're too deep. Roll your hips an inch before you're all of the way in," I instructed.

And oh my Darwin! When he did as I asked and finally hit my gland head on, it was unbelievable! I started cumming right then and there. There was no holding it back and trying to last longer. There was no thought. There was just me thrashing in his arms as my untouched dick emptied onto the towel below us. I did not even have cognitive thought enough to warn him or let him know once it was happening. I did not even understand what he was saying until several minutes later.

"Are you okay Tink?" he was asking me. He must have gotten worried when I did not respond to whatever it was he had said earlier.

"Yeah. I just came and couldn't hear you," I replied panting in his arms.

"I figured as much when your ass started clamping down on my cock: that was the most wonderful thing I've ever felt," he breathed huskily into my ear, beginning to pull out of me again.

This time when he pushed back into me, he stopped an inch short and rolled his hips again, hitting my prostate head on for the second time. Even though I had just had the most mind-blowing orgasm in existence, I felt a tingling in my loins as the blood rushed once again to fill my penis.

I could not see it when I looked down, but I was sure that I was hard again. I got lost in the feeling of Jacob as he repeated his thrusting and rolling, establishing a delicious rhythm. He was going so slowly that I was sure he would be able to last a long time like this, so I just rested my head against his arm and hung on for the ride.

Jacob must have been fucking me for half an hour before he picked up the pace. He had been fucking me so good for so long without a single touch to my dick that I had developed a permanent tingling sensation in my balls, like I was always just a breath away from falling over the edge into bliss again. And my cock was leaking so much fluid that I could feel it dribbling down my leg again. Or was that my cum from earlier?

"I'm so close Tinker Bell," Jacob panted as he slammed into me with new vigor. "Are you gonna cum for me again like this?"

"Yesss," I hissed as I concentrated on the new rhythm and the sensation of my prostate being pounded into over and over again. I had been on the edge for so long, so this increased pace was just what I needed to set me off.

"Cum for me, my love," Jacob said slamming into me and losing his rhythm.

"Spider!" I yelled as I came. I felt like I was falling over a waterfall with the water rushing in my ears. I felt like the waves were rough and pounding my ass with their turbulence. I felt something new: a pulsing and spasming within my body that was not from me. I felt bliss in his arms and a cold wet towel underneath me.

I am not sure how long we lied like that, but when I regained my faculties Jacob was lying on top of me, with my stomach pressed flush against the soiled towel. My ass felt oddly empty and there was a burning sensation as I stirred. But I was trapped underneath Jacob's weight, so I could not move.

"Spider Monkey," I said softly.

"Hmm," he replied.

"Are you awake?"

"Yeah, but I was just enjoying holding you in my arms. Can I hold you forever?"

"Yes. But we need to clean up."

"That is your own cum: live with it. Don't wanna move."

"Where's yours?" I asked concerned.

"In the condom. I already took it off and put it on the towel," he replied.

"Aren't you worried about getting my cum on you?" I asked.

"Why should I? We're both clean: your dad tested us," he replied holding me closer to him.

Both of our STD tests had come back clean, but my dad always said that even if we were both clean, we needed to be safe. Jacob understood the need to keep me clean from his bodily fluids, because I might get sick even from normal commensal Bacteria. But he did not see why he needed to take precautions to keep my fluids off of him when he knew I was clean.

"Because my dad'll like you better if we never exchange bodily fluids again," I said. "Do you really think this garage will stay this way if my parents don't approve of you?"

"Yes. It'll be here for Russell and Bella. She told me she expects him to keep putting out, the poor guy. My dick would crawl up inside my body and hide if Bella was coming after me."

"Me too. She's like my sister."

"Exactly," Jacob replied kissing the top of my head. "But if it will make you happy, I will clean up that cum which in not anywhere near me."

"Thank you," I replied as I felt his body leave mine. He came back with the box of baby wipes just as I was turning over and noticing the large smear of cum: it was everywhere. "I think a shower would work better."

"As long as I can take it with you," he answered putting down the wipes and grabbing my hand.

He led us into the shower and we went right to work cleaning ourselves without any funny business: I was too sore to even think about it. "Did you tear?" he asked me once we were clean when he noticed me flinch.

"No, I don't think so. It's just sore," I replied taking his hand.

"Mine's not," he replied giving his ass a little shake. "You must've been gentler with me. I'm sorry I hurt you, I love you."

"It's fine. I love you too."

After that we dried off, got dressed, and went back into the loft room to clean up. We changed the sheets and threw the used towel in the laundry, thankful that we had thought to put it down underneath us, so that none of the cum leaked through to the mattress. There was nothing more disgusting than a communal bed with cum stains.

Jacob put on a fresh sheet and I went around the bed picking up crumpled baby wipes and empty condom wrappers, throwing them in the trash. We made sure the place was spotless, so that we would not be in danger of violating any of the garage usage rules, and the last thing I did was turn off the space heater, before returning to the house.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Charlie and Renee aren't too happy about Bella and Russell's relationship and are currently conspiring to break them up, so next chapter we're going to go back to Russell to see what's going on…<p> 


	38. Chapter 37

Russell's POV:

I was sitting in my second period eighth-grade algebra class on a sunny spring morning in late April when it all started. I had been sitting next to Emmett and Jasper while our class corrected each other's homework. I had Emmett's, so when I finished, I turned over to explain which problems he had missed. That is when I saw it: a big red spot forming on his upper left shorts leg. I did not know why my brother was bleeding, but it probably had something to do with his intersexed disorder. I could not think of a single reason why I thought this, but I did know that we needed to cover it up in order to maintain our social status as the cool elusive Cullen boys.

I grabbed my jacket off of the back of my seat and draped it over Emmett's long left leg, covering the growing spot of blood. Then I leaned over and whispered to Emmett, "You're bleeding. Tie this around your waste, cover your nose like it's bloody, and run to the bathroom."

He nodded and began to gather up his books and papers, so I did the same as I turned behind him to Jasper and instructed, "Make our excuse for us and meet us in the boy's bathroom. Emmett had a bloody nose from wrestling this morning."

"Sure Russell," Jasper replied gathering up his own books as Emmett and I stood and fled the classroom. Just as we were making our way to the door I heard the teacher yelling at us to stop so that she could question us. But Jasper was on his game today and rose to his feet, blocking the teacher's view of us, and stated, "Emmett has a bloody nose. We were wrestling this morning when Russell got in a good one. We stopped the bleeding, but…"

I did not hear the end of Jasper's excuse because the door swung closed as I rushed Emmett to the bathroom. A minute later, Emmett had stripped from the waist down in the large stall at the end, while I was wetting paper towels like mad. I brought back a huge pile of wet towels and handed him half, as I began to help wipe the blood off of his leg. The blood seemed to be coming from between his legs, so Emmett was busy trying to wipe himself there, when Jasper and Edward joined us. Jasper must have picked up Edward on his way.

"She didn't want to let me go! She kept insisting that one brother was enough to take him to the nurse with his bloody nose," Jasper sighed exasperated from his dealings with our teacher. "But then I noticed the blood on the carpet near his desk. Once I pointed that out, she said to go ahead and send in the janitor while I was at it: something about she can't leave blood on the carpet."

"Man Emmett! You're really bleeding! Maybe we should call Dad and take you to the hospital!" Edward exclaimed coming forward, while Jasper seemed to cringe back. "I saw Jasper arguing with your teacher through my classroom window across the hall. I thought he was having one of his freak outs so my teacher let me go right away."

"What do you think Emmett? We could get the school nurse," I suggested, still wiping off blood. I had now made it to his upper thigh, but he was still pulling out bloody towel after bloody towel from between his legs. His boxers and shorts were ruined, and if we could not stop the bleeding, I did not see any way out of this mess without getting help.

"It's everywhere! I can't get it off me!" Emmett cried in frustration, clearly too stressed out to make decisions.

"Edward, go get the nurse to help us, then we'll call Dad. Take Jasper with you: I think he's freaking out," I said taking charge of the situation as I stood and put Emmett's soiled garments in the bathroom sink.

Edward complied, and by the time he and Jasper came back with Mrs. Varner, the school nurse, I was just helping Emmett wipe the blood off of his butt. The task gave me an excellent view of his vagina, which I had never seen up close before. His vagina looked much more like a real one than my own, because all I had was a little blind vaginal canal tucked underneath my beans as a relic from my PAIS. Just because my beans had finally descended and covered the thing up, did not mean it had gone away.

"What's going on here?" Mrs. Varner asked as Edward led her into the boy's restroom.

Under the stall door, I could see Jasper's feet standing just outside the door, but he remained silent; hopefully he would stay outside and try not to look. Jasper had issues with his own vagina, even going so far as to cut it about six months ago, so the last thing he needed to see was Emmett's vagina leaking blood all over the place.

I opened the stall door, taking a pile of soiled paper towels to the trash and stopped at the sink to make more. "I don't know what's happening, but Emmett's bleeding from his vagina," I answered. "His clothes are ruined and we can't get the bleeding to stop. We should call Dad and take Emmett to the hospital."

"That's right: Emmett's the one with the vagina," Mrs. Varner said remembering the medical briefing my father had given her on us when we started school here. She probably had us all tagged with stupid descriptors like that. I bet to her I was the one with no beans, Edward was the gay with the hypospadias, and Jasper the one who cuts himself. Getting help out of her just started to sound a lot harder. Maybe we should not have gone to her for help after all.

"I sent a janitor to your classroom. Should I call Dad now?" Edward asked from his spot next to Jasper in the doorway. Taking care of Jasper and making sure our brother did not see anything was a full-time task, so I knew I could not ask him to help me clean Emmett.

Just as I was about to tell Edward to go ahead and call Dad, Mrs. Varner came to her senses and replied, "No, I'll call him when we get back to my office. Edward, you go to Emmett's locker and get his P.E. shorts for him to wear."

"Yes Ma'am," Edward replied before taking Jasper's hand and walking out the door happy for a reason to keep Jasper away from the horrid bloody bathroom.

"Emmett doesn't need to go to the hospital: he's just having a period. I need to go back to my office to get some supplies, and then we'll clean him right up and send him home. Next time this happens, you just bring him straight to me," Mrs. Varner said.

"This is gonna happen again!" Emmett wailed.

"A period?" I asked. I was shocked, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

"Yes to both. Now if you'll just excuse me, I'll be right back," she informed us as she left.

"I can't get the blood off of my ball," Emmett complained as I went over to hug and comfort him.

"Here, I have more," I said handing him a small pile of wet paper towels.

"Okay Emmett, I have everything we'll need to fix you right up," Mrs. Varner said returning to the bathroom. "Now I don't have any boy's underwear, and you certainly can't wear boxers with a maxi pad, so these girl's panties will have to do until you get home. I grabbed the largest size we have, so I hope they fit."

"Seriously? You're gonna make him wear those? Just cut off his one testicle and throw away his masculinity while you're at it!" I exclaimed thinking about where we could get a pair of tighty whities. Emmett, Jasper, and I only had boxers, while Edward wore tighty whities, but Edward was so skinny that his clothes would never fit Emmett.

"It's fine Rus, I understand," Emmett said choking back tears.

"Good. Do you know how to put a maxi pad on?" Mrs. Varner asked.

When we both shook our heads, she continued, "You just take the adhesive strip on the back off like so, and place it in the middle of the crotch area," she said demonstrating the technique before handing the panties, complete with pad, to Emmett.

"Which side is the front?" Emmett asked. This was the same question I had, because without the dick slit, how could anyone tell? Back when I went through my stage of wearing girl's clothing, I had always worn boy's underwear underneath. Well except for the one time Esme and the nurse at the hospital had dressed me and the time I had worn Lily's underwear when running from Social Services, but Lily had shown me back then which side was the front.

"This side," Mrs. Varner replied indicating the backside. Emmett flipped the panties around and pulled them on. "How's that fit?"

"Awkward: where am I supposed to put the frank and beans in these?" Emmett asked.

"Well we'll call your father and ask for the specifics, but that seems fine for now," Mrs. Varner replied as Edward and Jasper ran back in, out of breath from their trek to retrieve shorts.

"Here Emmett! I got your combo wrong the first few tries I was so nervous. Cool panties! I like the little flowers!" Edward disjointedly said as he handed Emmett the shorts.

"Thanks Edward," Emmett replied less than half-heartedly as he pulled up his shorts and slipped his shoes back on without socks: one of the socks had gotten blood on it, so the pair was currently in the sink with the rest of his clothes.

"Now just put the soiled clothes in this bag and here are a few extra pads for you," Mrs. Varner stated handing me an empty bag for the clothes, and Emmett a few more Maxi pads.

I grabbed the clothes, Emmett put the pads in his backpack, and Edward and Jasper grabbed all of our backpacks for the trip to the nurse's office.

Mrs. Varner set us down and she called my dad to come get us. Then while we waited, she gave us a lesson in periods. Emmett started crying and Jasper started shuddering when she said that they occurred once a month, so Edward and I wrapped our arms around our brothers for the remainder of the talk. There was something about hormones and the uterus and blood linings, but from what I could tell, it was really bad. It made me very grateful for my complete and utter lack of a uterus.

After half an hour, my dad came to pick us up and took us home. "I sent Mom out to Port Angeles to pick up some supplies for you, Emmett. She should be back in about an hour with tighty whities and more pads. But for now, why don't we make you a nice warm bath to soak in?" Dad asked as we entered the door. There was one good thing about this retched day: the four of us all got out of school early and it was only ten in the morning.

Emmett nodded and went down the hall with Dad to use Alice's bathroom, because it was the only one with a tub. As soon as they were out of site, Edward suggested, "Let's make him some chicken noodle soup to make him feel better. He still seems really upset…"

"That sounds like a great idea! But how do you make it?" Jasper asked. We were spoiled rich kids, and although Mom worked, she was home all of the time, so none of the other boys knew how to make toast.

"Well, we just get a can and open it. Then we dump it in a bowl and microwave: I've seen Jacob do it at his house," Edward answered.

"No, no, no. That isn't how to make edible soup!" I exclaimed. I had taken care of my biological sisters until I was eight, so I knew a lot about cooking. Most of the time we only had a microwave, but a few times we had had real cook-tops in the motel. "Edward, you look in the fridge for some carrots and Jasper you get some chicken out of the freezer. I'll get potatoes and egg noodles out of the pantry."

When I came back from the pantry, I set Edward up cutting the chicken into cubes, while I prepared the potatoes and carrots. Neither of us let Jasper have a knife, not that he had cut himself in the last six months, but we were still reluctant about placing sharp objects in his hands in case it put ideas in his head. Once all of the ingredients were ready, I poured them into a medium sized pot, added water, and set it to boil.

"You two watch it and stir it every ten minutes," I instructed thinking I would just check on the laundry.

"Russell!" I heard my mom calling me from down the hall just as I was heading towards the washer. "Can you come up here please?" Mom had come home from the store and gone straight to Alice's bathroom while we were cooking. And Emmett was probably still in the bathtub, because neither of them had come out. I would too if I were him: anything to avoid putting chick underwear on again.

"Just watch the soup and start the laundry, and I'll be back to check on it after I see what Mom wants," I told Edward before I went down the hall. I had placed Emmett's soiled laundry in the washer to soak when we got home, so all Edward had to do was turn the knob. Surely he was worldly enough to do that, even if he could not cook.

"Yes Mom?" I replied, peeking my head into the bathroom. Emmett was sitting on the toilet pulling up a pair of pajama bottoms over his bulging tighty whities. A bulge in his underpants was a rare sight, because his dick was the size of a button: the bulge was from the pad.

"Can you help your brother take these pads and underwear to his room and keep him company for a while: he's very emotional right now with all of the hormones and I don't want him to be alone," my mom replied giving Emmett a hug. "It's going to be okay Em. We all love you just the way you are."

"Sure Mom," I replied taking the proffered bags from my mother and she let my brother go from the hug.

"Come on Em, let's go put these in your room and then play video games. And Edward and Jasper are making you soup," I said indicating where Edward and Jasper were bent over a pot watching it boil.

"Thanks Rus," he replied carrying a towel with him as we walked upstairs.

"What's the towel for?" I asked when we got back to his room, as I put away the new items in his top drawer, scooting over his boxers to make room.

"Dad just spent the last hour explaining the birds and the bees to me. If I put the towel down under me, then if the pad leaks, I won't ruin my bed or the couch," he answered.

"That sucks. But a few hours vegging and playing Rock Band with me should help make your day a little less sucky," I suggested.

"Okay," he replied and we walked back down the stairs to the living room to play video games.

"I started the washer and Jasper and I are gonna play chest in his room. Can you watch the soup?" Edward asked coming out of the kitchen with Jasper in tow.

Keeping Jasper away from period boy when he already hated his own vagina sounded like a good idea to me, so I replied, "Sure thing. Have fun," before turning the game console on.

I checked the soup every ten minutes and thirty minutes later it was done. I seasoned it to taste and ladled out bowls for Emmett and me. We had soup for an early lunch, before returning to our video games. An hour later Emmett's watch alarm beeped and I looked at him expectantly, wondering what the alarm was for.

"I've gotta go change the pad," he explained as he paused our game.

Emmett went upstairs, I assumed to get a maxi pad and use the restroom, but I began to grow inpatient when he did not return. I was just debating on whether or not I should go upstairs and check on him, when I heard him call my name. "Coming," I called as I turned off the game and ascended the stairs, pausing outside the closed bathroom door. "What's up?"

"I messed up this pad: stupid thing sticks to itself and not the underwear. Can you get me another one?" Emmett asked through the door.

"Sure Em," I replied before going to his room and retrieving a few pads. I brought them back to the bathroom and handed him one, while placing the other two in the cabinet under the sink. "I brought a couple extra pads for next time."

"Thanks Rus," Emmett replied as he started to cry.

"It's gonna be okay Em. Getting your period isn't the end of the world," I said hugging my brother.

"But I'm a boy, this shouldn't be happening to me," he whined in between sobs as he unpeeled the pad and pushed it into his tighty whities.

"And I shouldn't have had to take testosterone shots twice a week just to make my beans come in, but I did and I still have to take my shots. We may have different symptoms, but we're both intersexed, and more importantly, we're brothers. We'll get through this together. Look on the bright side: I bet we can milk this to get both of us out of school for the rest of the week," I replied giving his shoulder a squeeze. It was a Monday, so we could probably get away with taking another four days off.

"Yeah, but what no one tells you is how much it hurts: my back is killing me," he replied.

"Well let's go to your room and I'll give you a massage," I offered. When Emmett was adopted, he took the remaining room on the second floor across from my parents' room, because Alice had insisted on taking the downstairs guest room, having seen in one of her psychic visions that Emmett would be joining us.

"Thanks Rus," Emmett said pulling up his pants.

"Sure thing man, I'll just change into my pajama pants and grab some lotion from Edward's room for the backrub," I said.

I quickly changed and stopped by Edward's room to borrow his lotion. He was still in Jasper's room with the door shut, so I decided not to ask first and just grabbed it. Edward and my mom were the only two people in our house who owned lotion, because it was too girly for the rest of us. On the television, backrubs always involved lotion, so I figured Edward would not mind. In fact, if it meant him not having to be around hormonal Emmett, he would probably be grateful and thank me.

So it was only a minute later that I entered Emmett's room armed with Edward's lotion, prepared to rub my brother's back, and asked, "Are you ready for that massage?"

Emmett was already sitting on top of his towel on his bed, still wearing his pajamas. His cheeks flushed and he quickly nodded before looking away.

I assumed the off behavior was because he was accepting a backrub from his brother, which would be a first for us. Emmett was my best friend, but we were not as touchy feely as Edward, and Emmett probably felt embarrassed that he was about to receive something as girly as a backrub. But if his back really did hurt from the whole bleeding from his uterus thing, then this might make him feel better. So I walked over to him, sat down behind him, and started to rub in the lotion, like I had seen on television.

"Where's it hurt most?" I asked him as I concentrated on his shoulders.

"My lower back," he replied indicating the small of his back. I squirted some more lotion onto my hands and worked my way lower, to the region he indicated. When I got there, he let out a soft moan, so I figured I was doing it correctly and continued in silence.

I was still massaging Emmett's lower back when Mom appeared in the open doorway. "It's been three hours since Dad gave you that Tylenol Emmett, do you want some more to help with the pain? How're you feeling sweetie?" she asked drawing attention to the bottle of pills in her hands.

"Yes please, Mom: my back's killing me," Emmett replied, but quickly broke eye contact, looking down to the floor.

Mom doled out the medication and handed my brother a bottle of water, before leaving the bottle of pills on his nightstand. "You can take another two in three hours for the pain. How're you coping with all of this? I know Dad and you talked for a long time, so if you're all talked out for right now, I understand," she said with concern.

"Mom, can I ask you something?" Emmett asked still staring at his feet.

"Anything sweetheart."

"What am I supposed to do when I get an erection while wearing these stupid pad things?" he asked. I could see the blush radiating throughout his cheeks from my spot behind him on the bed. Emmett had the smallest micro in the family, so he was still tiny when hard, but I figured that it could be awkward wearing a pad.

"Well pads aren't made to accommodate erections, so I would recommend taking care of that in the shower, so that you don't get blood on your bed. But if you want to, your bed should be fine too if you put down a towel first. Or you could just talk to your brother until it goes away," Mom suggested.

My mom and dad must be the coolest parents ever, because they had no problem telling us boys to go choke the chicken in the shower. They also frequently gave us all condoms and lube, and left extras strategically placed throughout the house. All of our friends thought that we were the coolest boys in our school because our coffee table in the living room was decorated with a colorful bowl of condoms and travel sized lube packets, and a sign that read, "Take as many as you need." Also there was a smaller version of this bowl in the boy's upstairs bathroom and we each had a bottle of lube with our name on it on the soap ledge. That last one was my dad's idea.

And they were such cool parents that they set up the loft above the garage as our own private fuck-pad. Edward and his boyfriend Jacob used it all of the time, while I had not used it since my ex-girlfriend Bella moved to Arizona. Bella and I had been dating for years and had even started having sex, but we agreed to break up when she moved: her flighty mother got remarried and now that she had a dependable adult living with her, she was finally stable enough to take care of a child. It was too little too late if you asked me, but Bella had never gotten to spend much time with her mother, so she jumped at the chance to go.

Ever since Bella left back in March, I have been left with nothing but my hand and some porn. Luckily Emmett had not had a real girlfriend yet, although he had a few make-out sessions with some chick he met at the beach, so he was always down to watch porn with me. And when our parents caught us, they did not even say anything except for, "Don't let Alice and Jasper see that."

Since Edward was gay, and Jasper and Alice were too young, Emmett and I were always talking about hot girls together and he was my porn-sharing buddy. Jacking off to the same porn DVD gets boring, so we would trade to spice up our lives. And a few times, we watched one together late at night or when we were supposed to have the house to ourselves. But one time our parents came home early and found us in the living room jerking the chicken to a hot lesbian porno: Emmett was a boob man, while I liked the pussy.

"Rus is part of the problem, so I don't think talking to him will make it go away," Emmett finally whispered after a minute, still looking at his feet as his blush turned a brighter shade of red.

"Oh… Well then you'll have to go with one of the first two options," she replied.

"Mom? Can I ask you something else?" Emmett asked, still embarrassed.

"Sure baby," she answered not at all worried about what was going to come out of my brother's big mouth. Truthfully, after that first admission, I think I would have said no.

"Does that make me gay that I got hard looking at my brother's chest?" Emmett asked in a barely audible whisper.

"Actually, I was wondering the same thing earlier this morning: I got a hard on while I was helping Em wipe all the blood off of his pussy," I added in. It was true and I hoped it would make Emmett feel better knowing that he was not the only one, but it was not exactly relevant. I had gotten hard while touching a fuck-hot virgin pussy, while Em had just been looking at me in my pajamas. His was definitely gayer than mine.

"No, if anything that would make you two bi. But Russell, it sounds like you were just turned on by Emmett's more feminine parts, so you're probably still straight. Emmett, you'll have to look at other boys to tell if you're bi or are just into Russell because he's also intersexed. If you need any help staying safe, just ask, but you boys should bring this up in therapy," she answered.

"I must be pretty sexy if looking at my abs turns men bi," I teased, trying to lighten the mood.

"Not your abs, your pecks," Emmett mumbled.

He must have mumbled it loudly enough for Mom to hear, because she suddenly looked me over and asked, "Russell, can you stand up for me for a moment?"

"What?" I asked as I stood up, giving my mother an unobstructed view of my body.

"Oh my," she gasped. "Russell, you're gonna have to put on a shirt and we'll have to go bra shopping on Saturday. When did you start getting breasts?"

"I don't have boobs! I'm just getting a little fat," I said indicating my new love handles. "I worked out extra this past weekend. Jasper and Emmett will help me do a couple of reps this weekend, and then I'll be fine."

"No Russell, those are breasts coming in on your chest, not fat. And those are feminine hips, not love handles: working out won't help. I'll go get your father so that he can give you a birds and the bees talk too," she replied.

"I'm not getting breasts! I've been taking the testosterone shots! And just look at the size of my cock," I protested grabbing my crotch rudely. "No one with a dick this big could have breasts." Although I had gone through my Rustina phase as a child, I was very firm in my decision to be a man and had no desire to go back to being a girl. Just the suggestion of it was extremely upsetting.

"Language Russell!" my mom reprimanded. "You already have the blind vagina; a set of breasts to go with it isn't much of a stretch. And your father said that some PAIS patients have female secondary characteristics, like breasts. Now go put on a shirt and don't let me catch you walking around without one now that your body is changing. And we'll go bra shopping this weekend."

"But Mom, I'm a boy! Boys are allowed to walk around shirtless. And I'm _not_ wearing a bra!" I shouted.

"I know this is hard for you Russell, but Emmett's going through the same thing and he's dealing with it a lot better than you are. Now calm down and I'll send your father up," she ordered.

"Sorry Rus," Emmett said, looking up at me with a weak apologetic smile and handed me one of his shirts to put on. That was quick: my chest must have been making him feel very uncomfortable for him to offer me a shirt so fast like that. I took the shirt scowling and put it on.

"Good. Now if you want to talk about it with me after your talk with Dad, I'll be in my office. You know you can come to me to talk about anything. Your father and I love both of you very much," Mom said wrapping Emmett and me in a hug before leaving the room.

"If it's any consolation, I think your boobs are _hot!_" Emmett exclaimed now that we were alone in his room. "If I had boobs like that, I would totally be all touching them and squeezing them and rubbing them. Now you get to touch hot boobs whenever you want."

"Well I would rather have a sweet pussy like yours to touch: that ish is _hot_!" I replied sitting next to him on the bed. I had my own, but I never felt inclined to touch mine.

"Well I'll let you see mine if I can see yours," he offered.

"You're on, but not until you're feeling better," I replied.

I had secretly been wanting to touch him since this morning, but I had stopped myself because he was my brother, and I tried not to think about him that way. Sure I had briefly acknowledged that he was a good-looking dude, but I had never before had a front row view of what he was packing or had any indication that he was attracted to me.

And now that I had both, I began to contemplate how hot he was: Emmett had a cute boyish face, complete with awesome dimples, and a smile that made my heart flutter. And his abs were pretty sweet and I always appreciated a toned body. I never really cared for boobs, which was why I always liked Bella's flat chest so much. So Emmett's flat chest did not bother me in the least, but was a total turn on. And he was intersexed, like me, so he would understand and except my unconventional body, just like Bella had.

"Emmett, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah," he replied as he caught me eyeing his chest and blushed.

"If you like my boobs, what do you think of my cock? Isn't it gonna be weird for you to look at my boobs knowing I have a dick?" I asked concerned that this might be a major hang up for him, because as far as I was aware, he was straight. I didn't want to show him my chests and then have him grossed out because I was still a boy.

"Um…this is kind of embarrassing. Sometimes I wonder how a dick would feel inside me. I even made out with a boy before and let him finger me," he replied shyly.

"Really who?" I asked shocked, because this was the first I was hearing about it.

"Jacob's cousin, Seth, last summer. It didn't go anywhere: he liked my face and body, but he was gay and couldn't get passed my vagina, so I never told anyone."

"Well that's too bad for him. It's kinda the opposite for me though, because without the pussy the flat man chests do nothing for me," I replied truthfully, trying to make him feel better.

"Do you think my chest is hot?" Emmett asked as a smile began to spread across his lips and light up his face.

"Yeah dude and your smile too," I replied as I heard Dad walking up the stairs.

Dad took me to my room and gave me a talk about secondary sexual characteristics, like breasts and hips. He said that the testosterone shots were suppressing them, so if I stopped my shots, I would probably begin to look even more like a lady. And I probably would never get that goatee I wanted, even though I have been looking forward to getting facial hair forever.

Then Dad concluded that in a few years, if I did not like the breasts, he would arrange to have them removed. And until then, I needed to wear a shirt at all times, like a girl, and go bra shopping with Mom. And no matter how much I protested against wearing such a thing, he told me I had to at least buy one. He did however concede that I could go around in a baggy sweatshirt if I wanted; just as long as I did not let it all hang out.

And then my father went into his typical spiel that my body was different because of the PAIS and that I should not be ashamed of who I am, so I zoned out and started daydreaming. I found myself thinking about licking Emmett's micropenis when I heard Dad ask, "So do you have any questions?"

"Nope, I'm good," I said taking the opportunity to bolt. "But I promised Emmett a back rub to help with his period."

"Okay. You know where to find me if you change your mind," he said as I quickly exited the room.

I found Emmett throwing away a used tissue and raised my eyebrow at him, knowing what he must have been doing while I had my talk with dad. Emmett's face turned scarlet at being caught red handed, although I did not know why: he had never been shy about spanking the monkey before. "Having fun without me, I see," I teased as I went to retrieve the bottle of lotion and resume the backrub.

"Yeah, sorry," he replied avoiding eye contact.

"Why are you acting so weird about it?" I asked.

"I was picturing your boobs as I did it," he admitted shrugging his shoulders.

"Well I was planning on using images of your pussy to handle my business tonight, so I guess that makes us even," I offered. Without Bella around, Emmett's slit was the first one I had seen it over two months, so it was bound to feature in my fantasies for a while, despite the blood.

Emmett and I continued to flirt as a finished massaging his back. Then he lied down on his bed and asked me to rub his front. I jumped at the opportunity to touch his rock-hard abs and agreed. And while I was rubbing lotion into his pecks, he stole a kiss. That led to an all-out make-out session, which was just as hot as the ones I had had with Bella, if not hotter.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Did anyone see EmmettRussell coming? Or did I have you all fooled thinking that this was going to be a Russell/Bella story? Oh, and Alice lied to Russell when she said that he and Emmett we just going to be best friends, but he wasn't ready to hear the truth back then.


	39. Chapter 38

Warning: The following chapter contains intersexed lemon juice, but not actual lemons.

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><p>Russell's POV:<p>

Making out with my brother in his bed was something I never expected to do, but now that I had, I wanted to do it again; a lot. And even though I was not a virgin, Emmett was, so I really tried to take things slowly with him. Emmett did not exactly make that easy for me though.

We made out every day that week and Emmett even went bra shopping with me on Saturday. He was much more into the bras, so I let him pick them out. He picked a whole stack of lacy ones that he said were sexy, but Mom put most of them back and picked out an entire stack of ones she thought were comfortable. I finally grabbed one of each and asked, "Okay, I have two bras. Can we go now?"

"You know Russell; I'm not doing this to be mean to you. Bras come in useful for a number of things, like holding your breasts in place while you run. And it's best you start getting used to wearing one now, because if your breasts continue to grow, then you will have to wear one all of the time," Mom replied.

"I just really don't want to be doing this," I replied shrugging my shoulders.

"I know sweetie, but now it's done and we won't have to do this again for a long time," she said hugging me. "Now two bras are enough so we can go."

Two bras were more than I ever planned on wearing and Dad's requirement was only for one, so Mom paid for the bras and we left. When we got home, Mom said, "Emmett, go make Russell try on one of those bras. Even if he's not going to wear one all of the time he needs to at least know how to put one on."

"Yes Ma'am! Come on Rus," Emmett answered already pulling out the sexy lace bra from the bag.

I was a little torn between wanting to argue with my mother and refuse to wear the bra, and the urge to following Emmett upstairs. Emmett was waiting for me at the base of the stairs, holding the bra to his own chest, and giving me a look with hooded eyes that said he had something planned for us.

"Fine," I acquiesced and followed Emmett up the stairs and into my bedroom, locking the door behind me.

"Strip," he instructed me but started pulling his own shirt off instead.

I pulled my shirt off, but left my pants on, because we had not gotten to below the waist activities yet. Darwin, it was only yesterday that had stopped bleeding below the waist. "You see something you like?" I asked as I caught him looking at my chest.

"Sure do: I swear your boobs get bigger every day. Now come here so I can dress you up," he answered pulling the tags off of the bra and unhooking the back.

"Sometimes I think you only want me for my boobs," I teased and I let Emmett put the A-cup bra on me. "But you better hope that they aren't getting bigger, because I will cut them off myself if I ever have Bs on my chest."

"You know what happened to Jasper when he tried it," he warned me, turning me around to hook the back together or something. "Besides, your chest is just so hot! I still can't believe you don't ever want to play with yourself…"

"I'll tell you what is hot: your smile," I said pushing him down onto my bed and pressing my lips to his.

He kissed me back and appeared to be enjoying the lace show, because he could not take his eyes, or his hands for that matter, away from my chest. But no matter how much he fondled the fabric, he never once moved to take it off of me, although he would occasionally dip his finger in beneath the fabric to tweak a nipple. "You have the prettiest pink nipples," he breathed into my ear.

"So do you," I replied leaning down to take one of his tiny little buds into my mouth. His nipples were perfect and it sent a tingle down my spine when I took one of them into my mouth.

I was doing my best to tongue his nipple when I was interrupted by Emmett's groan in my ear. Then he whispered, "Fuck Rus! Now I'm hard again."

"What do you mean again? Is there something you're not telling me about?" I asked in my most seductive voice.

"I was hard as a rock this morning just thinking about our trip to the store today. I already took care of myself twice before we left," he confessed blushing.

This newfound sexual attraction was moving really fast, but I had been rock hard since we started making out, so I rubbed my cock against his thigh, to let him know I felt the same way. "Let's go into the bathroom," I whispered.

He nodded, but when I led him down the hall, he grabbed my wrist and said, "No, not here. Let's go to the garage."

"But I'm not dressed for the garage," I said indicating the bra. Mom's rule was that I had to wear a shirt over the silly device.

"Well we'll grab our shirts first," he replied heading back to my room.

We both pulled our shirts back on and then Emmett took my hand and led me to the garage. I climbed the ladder first, with Emmett behind me. This was something new for me, because I had only been up here with Bella before.

"This is my first time up here," Emmett admitted. "But Edward told me about the bathroom."

Emmett wasted no time in pulling me towards the bathroom and pulling off my shirt. I pulled off his and then reached behind me to un-do the clasp of my bra. But I could not get it and before I had time to try again, Emmett stopped me saying, "Leave it on Sexy."

Then Emmett turned on the water and plugged the tub, but when he turned around we were faced with an awkward situation: we both still had our pants on and had never done this before. "Is this alright?" he asked me as he pulled me closer and put his hand over my belt buckle to show what he was planning.

"Yes," I replied grabbing his belt buckle and beginning to unfasten it.

He took off my belt, while I took off his, and our pants followed in a similar manner, and then we were left holding each other in just our boxers and my bra. We stopped to make-out for a few minutes, as I ground my erection into his thigh. He was grinding his groin into my stomach in return, but I never felt anything poking me: it felt just like when Bella was grinding her body against me. The only difference was that Emmett was about a foot taller than Bella.

Once the tub was filled with water, I reached over to turn it off, while Emmett pulled off his own boxers and sat down in the tub. I stared at the erect micropenis between his legs as I removed my own boxers, before stepping into the tub and sitting on his lap. Now that I was sitting directly on it, I could feel the slight pressure from the small organ pressing directly into my ass.

Emmett wrapped his left arm around me, and slowly let his right hand travel along my body until he was touching my right breast, over the bra. "Can I lick it?" he asked me in a husky voice.

I looked into his eyes, and then down at his micropenis behind me. I shifted to do so and the ridged organ was now stabbing me in the thigh. I nodded and Emmett pulled the fabric covering my right breast down just enough to expose my nipple. His tongue darted out and the sensation felt so good that my head fell back as I moaned loudly. I trailed my fingers along his left thigh until I got to the micropenis. Penises did nothing for me, but for some reason, I found micropenises extraordinarily hot and desperately wanted to touch it. So I did: it was like stroking a large clit, except for there being more to work with.

And this time it was Emmett's turn to throw his head back and moan. He opened his legs, granting me access to the hidden treasure, and my fingers traveled lower, looking for that gorgeous vagina of his. When I found it, it felt like silk beneath my fingers. It was wet and slippery, and not just from the water either: he was wet for me. I slowly pushed my finger inside and almost creamed myself thinking about what it would feel like to push my cock inside too. It had only been a few months since Bella left, but I was already missing the regular action.

"I want to fuck your tight pussy," I moaned as Emmett continued to lick my nipple and I started to pump my finger in and out of his tight hole. "I'm gonna thrust my big cock into your tiny little hole until you scream my name."

"Fuck that feels so good Rus!" he exclaimed guiding my free hand to his micropenis. I began to stroke his micro in time with his pussy and his breathing picked up as his eyes closed and he forgot to continue his licking. I pulled back his foreskin and ran my finger around the rim of his tiny head, spreading precum from his tip as I went. He was tiny, so it did not take more than a drop of precum to cover the entire head.

As I stroked his head in rhythm, I began to concentrate on finding his G-spot. I pushed my fingers up into his walls until I found a place that made him shudder: it was along the top about half way in, just like Bella's had been. I added a second finger and began to pump him in earnest.

"Cumming!" he shouted after another five minutes, as his walls clamped down on my fingers and cum shot out of his little dick.

Emmett was still panting as he reached his hand down and grabbed my rock-hard cock and began to stroke firmly. "I think I like the way your penis feels in my hand. I've always wished I had a penis like yours: long and thick and lickable," he whispered into my ear before nipping my neck.

There was something wonderful about the feeling of his hand on my shaft: it was strong and firm and so not mine. It was different than Bella's had felt, and yet this just felt so right. The feeling was so sublime that I knew I would want to do it again, and again. It was only ten minutes later that I was spraying us both in semen and screaming his name. He licked and nipped along my jaw until I caught my breath, before capturing my lips in a hungry kiss.

"Will you be my boyfriend?" Emmett asked me, breaking away from our kiss.

"Yes," I replied throwing my arms around him, too caught up in post-orgasmic bliss to even think about what this would mean.

And ever since that day in the bathtub, Emmett and I have been a thing. He stood by me when I went bra shopping and I covered for him when he got his period at school. Our genitalia may not have been standard, but our romance was hot and passionate and wild. But our relationship was not considered conventional because we were both assuming the male gender identity.

Emmett and I told our parents about our relationship that night and we had a meeting with Dr. Flynn the next day. Not just me and Emmett, but the entire family came to talk about what this meant for us.

"Well if you two are dating, maybe we should hold off on finalizing Emmett's adoption," Dad said.

"I thought that already was final?" Emmett asked.

"Almost, but we had to cancel our last court date, because of everything that was going on with Jasper. All of the paperwork is done, we just have to have it finalized by the judge," Mom replied.

"But it's illegal for siblings to date, so if you two are serious about this, we'll have to postpone the court date again. Emmett, you'll still be able to live with us and you'll be our son to us, but legally we'd be your guardians, not your parents. We can always restart the adoption process later if you change your mind," Dad said.

Emmett was a little upset that he would not be adopted, but we had no choice, because my adoption was already final. And it was also decided that there was no way to hide our relationship, since Emmett and I were together all of the time, and we really did not want to. And since we were both boys, it was agreed that we would both come out of the closet and announce that we were bisexuals and were dating.

Emmett really was bi, while I was only bi for Emmett. But still, no one knew that we were intersexed and we wanted to keep it that way, so being bi would be the easiest explanation. It was apparently much more believable that I liked it up the ass than that Emmett had a gorgeous pink pussy. I had the perfect opportunity to announce my newfound love for dick Monday morning.

It was our first day back to school after being out for the entire week of Emmett's first period. Our teachers were used to us taking time off from school for things like camping, hiking, and hunting trips, and since all of us had been out, they naturally assumed we had been doing something fun. And so in my first period English class, Mr. Bertie asked, "So Edward, what did you and your brothers do last week? The weather was particularly nice all week."

My mom had wanted to send Edward and I back to school, because neither of us was having the period, but Emmett asked that I be allowed to stay with him to keep him company during his time of need. And Edward and Alice were allowed to stay to keep an eye on Jasper, who was still was not speaking after seeing Emmett's vaginal bleeding. Hopefully he would start talking again soon and would not be scarred for life.

"Me? I didn't do anything. Russell was the one Jasper caught making out with our brother," Edward replied, leading me in for my big announcement.

The entire class turned to look at me, waiting for me to speak. "Yep: Emmett and I got caught making out," I announced. "Turns out we're both bi, so Dad made us go to therapy all week. But Jasper walked in on us in the shower and was traumatized pretty badly: he only just turned twelve, so he's still not talking. Edward just lied low the whole time and no one realized that there was no reason for him to be staying home from school."

Jasper had not really caught us in the shower, but we had decided that it was the best explanation for why Jasper was not speaking. Emmett made a similar announcement in his first period class, so by second period, everyone already seemed to know. We got dozens of questions on the subject throughout the day and some of them were pretty gross.

Mike Newton asked me what Emmett's cock tasted like, and I answered, "I don't know yet, but I'll ask him to let me taste tonight and get back to you."

Bobby Jorgen asked me if I was the top or the bottom. He looked pretty shocked when I answered, "Top," as if he somehow expected it to be the other way around. But how could it, when Emmett does not have enough to penetrate me?

The worst was when Lauren Mallory cornered me in the hall and asked, "Did you switch to dick just because you weren't getting anymore pussy from Swan? Because mine is still available."

As she was talking, she had her body pressed up against mine, while my back was to the lockers. When she finished, she looked like she was leaning in for a kiss, but just then I saw Emmett and signaled him to come over and help. As soon as he was behind her, I took his hands and placed them on her boobs. "Only if Emmett can play too," I whispered into her ear as I lowered my hand to palm her crotch.

Then I leaned down to suck her neck and she moaned into my ear. I knew we could have had her if we really wanted, but she just looked too much like my sister, so I let her go saying, "But you'll have to submit to STD testing first. My dad'll never let us bang anyone who isn't clean."

Emmett let her go at the same time I did, so I took his hand and we walked away together, hand-in-hand. "So how was that feel you just copped?" I asked smiling up at him.

"Okay, but not as good as feeling you. What about you?" he asked me.

"She just doesn't do it for me," I admitted shrugging.

Then Emmett leaned down and kissed me in front of the entire school. Edward and Jasper wasted no time in joining us in the hall, to show their support.

Tyler was the first one to speak once Emmett and I broke our kiss. "So Edward, are they like that at home too?" he asked.

"Yep," Edward replied with a crooked smile on this face.

"Isn't it weird having two gay brothers?" Tyler asked, obviously taking it upon himself to lead the inquisition.

"Yeah, I think they totally copied me. I was gay first," Edward replied.

Several people let out loud gasps at Edward's statement, while several others just stood there in stunned silence, but there were a few that did not seem to be surprised in the group.

"So what, all the Cullen boys like dick?" Tyler asked.

"Yep," "Definitely," "Pretty much," Edward, Emmett, and I answered simultaneously.

"Whitlock that must make you the only straight boy in the Cullen house. What's that like being raised with three gay brothers?" Tyler asked.

Jasper just shook his head and ducked behind the rest of us. I was a little confused by his behavior, but he still was not talking so I would probably have to wait until we got home to find out what that was all about.

"Lay off Jasper, he has a girlfriend," Edward said coming to our brother's defense.

We should have planned this out properly, but when we started this day, Emmett and I had assumed that we would be the only two coming out of the closet today. And although we all knew about Edward's sexuality, we had no idea he was going to come out of the closet with us. Two people coming out was bad enough, but three seemed to cause pandemonium. Luckily, we were saved by the bell, signaling it was time to get back to class, so we just had to lay low in two more classes and then we could go home and put the whole coming out of the closet thing behind us.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Edward is a lot more comfortable with his sexuality than Russell is, but do you think Russell's really bi? Russell and Emmett are both intersexed and are about as close to being opposite sexes as two intersexed people can be, but Russell is using the male gender identity and is attracted to all of Emmett, even the boy parts. So what do you think?<p>

Happy Thanksgiving!


	40. Chapter 39

Russell's POV:

Emmett and I were the talk of the school, but I still made it through my entire eighth grade year without any real snags. It was the first time in years that I had been allowed to go to public school and I loved every minute of it. I got to make a bunch of new friends, but the best part was the vacations: I got the entire summer off with no school!

I had never had a real summer vacation before, because even when I was with my biological mother and did not go to school, I still had to take care of my sisters. So I was bound and determined to make the most of this vacation. I was downstairs with Edward and Jasper, trying to convince Jasper to go for a jog in the woods with me, when the earthquake hit.

Edward normally took both Jasper and me jogging, but he had yet another urinary tract infection, so he was lying on the couch with a blanket covering his catheter. It was only a small quake, but my mom had decorated the place with a lot of glass and breakable stuff, so when the shaking started Edward yelled, "Get under the door jamb!"

I was closest to the hallway leading to the front door, so I stood under that door jamb, while Jasper was closest to the piano nook. "What about you?" I asked Edward as he continued to lie on the couch. Jasper and I were now safe, but he was still in the open, trapped by his catheter.

But instead of answering me, he turned to Jasper, who was staring at the swords on the wall. The swords were shaking around with the force of the quake, but they were firmly bolted to the wall, so it did not look like they were going to fall. "Stop thinking about it Jazz!" Edward ordered as the shaking stopped.

Edward always seemed to notice when a sharp object caught Jasper's eye and he got the urge to cut himself. It had not happened in months, so I had assumed Jasper was over it. But with Emmett getting his period this spring, Jasper had more reasons than ever to hate vaginas.

When the shaking stopped Jasper stepped forward, but not to retrieve a sword from the wall. He was looking down at the floor at all of the items that had fallen off of the half wall that separated the piano nook from the rest of the house. "No Jasper! Leave it!" Edward ordered standing up as Jasper bent down to pick up a broken ceramic vase that had held a single plastic flower.

"Alice made this," Jasper said quietly as I struggled to make my way across the living room without stepping on any of the broken glass. Alice had made the vase for my mom for Mother's day at school. She thought that it was not up to her standards, but Mom loved it.

There was a lot of broken glass and stuff in the way, so I was going slowly as I crossed the living room. I would have run if the way had been clear. "Give it to me," I ordered Jasper as I finally reached him. Jasper complied and Edward let out a sigh of relief and sunk back down onto the couch. He had stood up when Jasper grabbed the broken shards, but he had not been able to untangle his catheter before I reached our brother.

Jasper handed me the cup just as Mom came in the front door. She had been outside gardening with Alice and Emmett. "Are you boys okay? What's going on?" she asked as she took in Jasper handing me the vase.

"We're okay now. Jasper wasn't actually gonna do anything, right Alice?" I asked turning to see Alice and Emmett right behind Mom.

"Not a thing but glue a vase back together," Alice answered. "Come here Jazz: let's go outside. Henry's on his way over so we can play football."

Jasper grabbed his football and went outside with Alice, while Emmett and I helped Mom clean up. Edward kept trying to get up and help, so Mom said, "If you don't stay lying down young man I will have no choice but to drive you to the hospital. Dad can sedate you or strap you down, I don't care which."

No one messes with Mom when she is mad, so Edward just stayed lying down while we cleaned. We made extra sure to get all of the broken glass, for fear that Jasper might find a stray shard. Mom even called in a cleaning service the next day to double check and be extra thorough. But a week later when I heard Jasper's scream from the bathroom, all I could think was, "We missed one."

After that first time Jasper cut himself, Mom had changed the door knobs both on the bathroom and on Jasper's room, so both doors no longer locked. Edward, Emmett, and I still had locks on our doors, but Mom and Dad had the key in case something went wrong. No locks for Jasper meant that it would be easier and faster to get to him if he ever tried to cut himself again.

So as soon as I heard the scream, I ran across the hall and opened the bathroom door, not even bothering with modesty. If Jasper wanted modesty, he could stop cutting himself. "Where is it? What'd you cut yourself with this time Jazz?" I asked as he just held out his bloody boxers.

Last time he had been holding the instrument he had used to cut himself and had seemed calm and collected as we talked to him. This time he was clinging to his boxers and crying hysterically. All I could think of to explain the difference was that he must have cut himself a lot worse this time.

"What's going on?" Emmett asked coming down the hall.

But I did not get a chance to answer Emmett before Alice and Mom were running up the stairs. Alice was shouting, "He didn't do it! He didn't cut himself. We need to take him to the hospital!"

"Then why's he bleeding Alice?" I asked, adding to the mayhem.

"Come on Jasper," Mom said grabbing his arm and leading him to his room.

Alice followed behind them, while Emmett and I waited in the hallway. Dad was at work and Edward was at Jacob's, so it was just the five of us home at the time. I held Emmett's hand as we waited to find out what was happening with our brother.

"I don't see a cut or any blood, but there's a lot of hair in the way this time," I heard Mom say. "Put some clothes on and I'll drive you to the hospital to see Carlisle."

After that, Mom left the room and disappeared within her own room. I figured she had gone to call Dad and let him know what was happening. Jasper was still bawling and seemed to be too upset to make an effort to put some pants on. Alice was at his dresser picking out new boxers and sweat pants, so Emmett and I went in the room to help her dress our brother.

Jasper continued to cry the entire way to the hospital and refused to talk to Dad once we got there. But Alice had seen something in a vision, so she pulled Dad aside and whispered something. I did not hear what she said, but after that Dad seemed to know just what tests to do. I wanted to stay and watch, but the emergency room was too crowded so Emmett, Mom, and I all got kicked out to the waiting room.

It was forty-five minutes later before Dad came in with Alice and Jasper. Jasper was still crying and not talking, while Alice had her arms wrapped around him and steered him to an empty couch across from the one I was sharing with Mom and Emmett. Dad closed the door behind him before he began.

"Jasper's going to be fine: he just got his first period. He didn't cut himself or hurt himself in any way, so he can go home with us. But he's having a hard time dealing with this turn of events, so he'll be getting extra therapy and I want everyone to be extra patient with him right now. Alice?" Dad said before turning the floor over to Alice.

"I saw his odds of hurting himself skyrocket when he saw the blood. He's still firm in his decision not to hurt himself, but he could still snap and lose control. We all need to watch him extra carefully and make sure he doesn't have access to anything sharp. Plus, I don't see him deciding to talk any time soon. I'm pretty sure that we can all learn sign language before he starts talking again," Alice explained.

"Not even when he goes back to school?" Mom asked.

"I can't see that far ahead," Alice replied.

"You know we all love you, but you're going to have to start talking again sometime," Mom said getting up to hug Jasper.

After that we all went home and Dad came home after picking up Edward an hour later. Alice stayed with Jasper, while Mom made the rest of us help her go through the house and get rid of anything dangerous. Most of the decorations in our house had already been destroyed by the quake, so there were just things like scissors, knives, and razor blades to lock up. Oh, and Mom took away the swords from over the mantel; I liked those swords.

Jasper pretty much stayed in his room the rest of the summer, even when Henry came over and begged him to play. I only ever saw Jasper do one of two things anymore: read and cry. Sometimes I saw him read and cry at the same time, but he was always doing at least one of them. I did not really know what to do to help Jasper feel better about himself. Alice and Edward said to just give him time and let his therapy sessions do their work.

Jasper now had to spend five hours a day at therapy, which was the equivalent load as if he were receiving in patient care in the psyche ward. He even had two more therapists added, because Dr. Flynn could not handle all of his hours combined with the rest of us. Alice even went with him to help him open up more, because whenever she was around, he was far more communicative, although he still was not talking. It always amazed me how she knew how he was feeling without him saying a word.

Our house was always so depressing now. When Jasper was away, I just kept thinking about where he was: therapy. When he was around, he was always crying and it felt like there was a dark cloud pushing down over our house, enveloping us in. Edward dealt with it by spending most of the summer over at Jacob's house, while Emmett kept asking me to do things outdoors with him. And Henry was missing his best friend, so Emmett and I kept going over there to keep him company.

I hated to leave my brother in his time of need, but it really did seem like Alice was the only one who could help him; well her and Dad. So I left. Emmett and I spent most of our time in the garage, or in the forest, or in the pool, or at Henry's house, or over at the baseball field. No one really noticed that Jasper and Alice were missing and no one asked about them; except for Henry.

Jasper and Henry were still best friends, and now that they were finally in the same grade, Jasper had spent even more time hanging out with him over this past year. But now Henry could not even get Jasper out of bed when he came over. He knew that something was up and that Jasper was depressed again, but he did not know why.

After a few weeks, Henry asked me and Emmett what was up with Jasper's depression. We could not tell the truth and Henry knew that Jasper had cut himself before, although he did not know where, so I decided to make up something along similar lines.

"Jazz cut himself again. He's not in the hospital, because Dad said we could keep him home this time just as long as we watch him and make sure he doesn't get a hold of anything sharp," I half-lied to Henry.

"Well I miss him and wish he'd get better already," Henry said as the three of us walked to the baseball field from his house.

Maybe having his friend around again would help him. Dad was thinking of asking Henry to come over and making Jasper get out of bed and go play, just to see how Jasper would react, when it happened: Jasper got his second period. The Darwinian thing happens every month! How was he ever going to get better if he was reminded of why he was upset all of the time? And I really did not see how he was going to go to school like that.

Personally, I was on Jasper's side and thought Dad should perform the surgery and remove the troublesome parts. Maybe it was just because I was at war with my own body image and wanted to remove my breasts, but I found I could really sympathize with Jasper. If I was having periods every single month I would ask to have my uterus removed too.

But thank Darwin I did not have that problem. I had no uterus and my vagina really did not bother me; it was just the stupid jugs sitting on my chest that I wanted to go. I guess that I was lucky in that I only had A-cups to deal with, but even though they were small, they were still an inconvenience that I did not want. They meant having to wear a shirt at all times, even in the pool. And they meant having something to hide in the locker room at school.

I had just turned fourteen, and Mom and Dad said that I could have my breasts removed for my fifteenth birthday next year, that is if I still wanted them removed. Right now I was leaning towards, "Fuck Yeah!" While Emmett was insistent that he was very attached to the round globes sitting on my chest.

"Please keep them. For me?" he would ask me looking at me with his round puppy-dog eyes.

Sometimes I thought I would do anything for Emmett, even keep the boobs. Sometimes I hated the boobs and how they limited me so much that I was ready to tear them off of me right then and there. And sometimes I thought that if I told Jasper how I felt, that he would know that he was not the only one who felt that way.

I decided to tell Jasper about a month before school started, and although we had not talked for a month and a half, not since before he got his first period, he listened to me. I actually thought he might just say, "Thanks, Rus," when I finished. But I took the slight smile he gave me instead.

Maybe one day he would be my happy brother again. Maybe one day his therapists would stop prescribing all of those antidepressants. Maybe Jasper and I could go toss around the football with Emmett and Henry again. But today was not that day.


	41. Chapter 40

Jasper's POV:

I was having the worst summer of my life, to the point where I actually thought about killing myself a few times. But every time I did, I always came back to one person: Alice. I just could not do that to her.

Alice knew I was thinking about it too, so every time the thought crossed my mind, she would whisper in my ear, "I just saw myself following after you."

Somehow Alice always knew what to say to bring me back to her. A world without Alice just seemed wrong and unfathomable. Even if the Earth ceased to spin, the Universe still needed an Alice in it or it would implode. Or at least I thought it should, based on the principle of the matter.

So no matter how often I thought about it, I could never even begin to think about going through with it, because then Alice would follow after me and I just could not allow that to happen. I could not hurt Alice like that. It was beyond wrong, because I had decided that hurting Alice was against my religion. I would do anything to protect her, even if it meant living like this.

So I kept on. Day after day passed and I focused all of my effort on following the routine that had been set for me. Wake up, eat breakfast, take a shower, put on the clothes Alice set out, and then Esme would drop me and Alice off at the hospital. I would listen to Dr. Pryor talk about gender identity and being comfortable in my own skin. I would take the pills given to me by Dr. Dayhoff and go through his program on cooping and managing depression. I would follow Alice to the cafeteria and eat whatever she placed in front of me. Then I would follow her back to see Dr. Flynn and talk about how I was feeling. Then Esme would pick us up and take us back home, where I would spend the rest of the afternoon reading, before going to bed and starting the whole ordeal over again.

Some mornings just getting out of bed was hard. Other days I spent crying. And then there were the days which I would spend trying not to think about ending it all, all because of the blood that was flowing. But as time went on, there seemed to be more days when I was able to do it; when I thought just for a moment that I could get through this day.

And then there came a day when a thought occurred to me that had nothing to do with how I was going to make it through the next few hours, but with what I needed to do in the future. Alice's birthday was coming up and I had ruined it for her last year and the last thing I wanted was to ruin it for her again. Like I said, hurting Alice was against my religion, so failing to celebrate her birthday must be tantamount to violating a commandment; it was sacrilegious.

Thou shall not forget Alice's birthday. That would be a good first commandment for my new religion. Or maybe that would be second and, "Thou shall not hurt Alice," would be first. Maybe I would call it Alicianism or Alicianity, or maybe even TCoAW, which stood for The Church of Alice Worship. But it did not really matter what I called it as long as I did not violate our most sacred of holy laws and remembered her birthday.

So I found myself faced with a very real problem: I was clinically depressed and needed to come up with a non-depressing way to celebrate Alice's birthday. The easiest solution would just be to ask her what we were doing for her birthday. So I decided to try that one, and since I had to spend two hours with Dr. Flynn talking about my feelings, I thought that I might as well kill two birds with one stone and bring it up then.

"So Jasper, tell me how you are feeling today," Dr. Flynn began.

Instead of answering right away, I pushed nervousness and anxiety onto to Alice and waited for her to answer for me. "He feels nervous and he's experiencing anxiety over something," Alice translated. "What is it Jazz?"

"Your birthday," I answered sending her my apprehension and desire to make it perfect.

"You're worried about my birthday?" she asked incredulously. "Don't you worry over _me_! You should be concentrating on getting _you_ better. That's all I want for my birthday."

"Party," I replied pushing her joy, amusement, and joviality, remembered from her last party two years ago.

"You hate parties," she replied. "You always get claustrophobic around all of those people." She was right of course, because all of that joy, amusement, and joviality always overwhelmed me and sent me fleeing from the room, but I was not about to admit that right now and jeopardize Alice's birthday party.

"Jasper, are you saying you want to throw a party for Alice's birthday?" Dr. Flynn asked, so I nodded. "Well then it looks like you're making a breakthrough! I'll have to tell Dr. Dayhoff that this combination of antidepressants seems to be working: people who are depressed don't want to plan parties for their girlfriends."

"Party," I repeated sending Alice first my stubborn determination to go through with this idea, followed by my curiosity as to what sort of party we should have.

"I don't see a party, Jazz. I'm sorry," Alice replied.

So I decided that there would be a party and held that decision very firmly in my mind. Then I started to consider all of the possibilities for a party. We could have a dance party and invite the kids from Alice's class over. Or a kiddy party with a clown and balloons. Or a dress-up party with ball-gowns and tiaras. Or a tea-party. A cowboy party. An astronaut party. A dinosaur party. A magic party. I was just flipping through all of the types of party I could think of now, hoping that a flash of one would trigger a response from Alice.

"Alright! Enough, Jazz, Please! I don't want a party. I've been secretly hoping that you'd get better in time for my birthday, but not so that we could spend it with tons of other people! I've been wanting to spend the day alone with you," she admitted.

A day alone, just the two of us could work too, so I shrugged. But what would she want to do with just two of us? I could not think of anything, so I sent her curiosity again.

"This," she said sending me a feeling I had never felt myself before.

I had felt this feeling off of Alice before, but mostly associated with her visions. Whenever I asked her what she was seeing, she said it was our honeymoon. But Alice was not the only one who I had felt this emotion from before; Emmett and Russell, Jacob and Edward, Aunt Esme and Uncle Carlisle, all of these couples would feel this way on occasion. Normally this feeling was associated with the couple excusing themselves and leaving the room. I had been thinking for a while now that this feeling meant they were sick and needed to lie down, which would explain why the people feeling this way always went to their bedrooms.

But what I was supposed to do with this feeling, I did not know, so I sent Alice my perplexity and wonder.

"What about this one Jazz?" she asked me sending me her love. Love was one I knew well: I had that one too and I felt that way whenever I looked at Alice.

I sent Alice my love, dredging it up from the depths of my being, until it was overwhelming and overpowering and I felt myself begin to lose control as it seeped away from me.

"What was that?" Dr. Flynn asked feeling the love. Sometimes I slipped and she caught wind of one of my emotions. I tried not to let it happen, but she already knew that Alice and I were communicating silently, so she never seemed too bothered by the slippage.

"Sorry," I said reeling my emotions in.

"Now add the two," Alice instructed, smiling at me with her joy and hope washing down on me. I was not sure why my love would turn into joy and hope once imbibed into Alice, but it always did somehow.

I tried adding the two, but I still could not make the first one, so I could not actually put them both together. I could not even experience the first one for myself. "I can't do it," I admitted. "I can't make that first one; I can't even name it." I dropped my head into my hands thinking that I had failed. I had failed Alice and this was the only thing she wanted for her birthday.

"Look at me Jazz," she said lifting my chin up so that her eyes met mine. "You will feel it. I'm turning twelve, Jasper. The big one-two. Do you remember what that means?"

I leaned over and gave her a soft peck on the cheek. Of course I knew what that meant: we were not allowed to kiss on the mouth until Alice's twelfth birthday.

"Yes, that's what I wanna do: I wanna spend the day making out with you," she replied.

"Are you sure that first one was making out?" I asked confused. I had seen a lot of people making out before and I had never associated the two.

"Not quite, but I don't wanna talk about that in front of Dr. Flynn," she replied and we both turned back to my doctor, who was sitting quietly in her chair watching us. One of the things I liked about Dr. Flynn was that she had become so accustomed to the way Alice and I communicated that she just let us do our thing without interrupting. Dr. Flynn once told me that she gains more insights into my mind by watching me just being with Alice than when I try to talk to her.

"Do you think you're ready for kissing Jasper?" Dr. Flynn asked now that our attention was back on her.

I had not really thought about it before. I knew I wanted to kiss Alice on the lips, but to go all of the way to making out? Making out was wet and opened mouthed and new and scary. I pushed Alice these emotions as a thought occurred to me: Alice wanted this for her birthday and I would do anything for her. So I nodded my head and replied, "Yes."

After that we spent another hour talking about our feelings, but I let Alice and Dr. Flynn do all of the talking while I tuned them out. I spent that time thinking about Alice's birthday and kissing. If this was going to be our first kiss, I wanted to make it special and something we would remember for the rest of our lives.

But the only thing I could think of to get Alice was flowers, which just seemed so ordinary. Everyone gets their girlfriend flowers. Sure it would be easy, because all I would have to do was ask Esme to take me to the store, but it would not be special. I wanted Alice's gift to be as special as she was. She was one of a kind, so finding a gift would be difficult to say the least.

I spent the rest of the week thinking about Alice's birthday and how to make it special. I asked Edward to help me pick out something nice to wear, while I asked Russell and Emmett for kissing advice. But it was Carlisle who gave me the best idea: he told me to take Alice to someplace that was special to us for the big kiss and I knew just where that somewhere special was.

When Alice first came to live with us, she led me to a tree in the woods and said it was our tree. We climbed that tree and when we were at the top, I asked her if it would stand forever, lasting as long as my love for her. I had expected her to say yes, so I was taken by surprise when she shook her head and replied, "No, it'll fall in a few years. But then we'll come here and sit on it and it'll be our spot."

So by the time Monday rolled around, I had made all of the arrangements for Alice's birthday. I had gotten the day off from therapy, asked Esme to make us a picnic lunch, and spent five hours practicing kissing on my arm. I even accidently gave myself a hickey, which made Alice laugh.

Once I was dressed, I went downstairs and waited in the living room for the love of my life to come out of her room. Alice emerged wearing a long flowing flowery pink summer dress and my aunt insisted on taking a bunch of pictures of the two of us before she handed me the basket and ushered us out the door.

I took Alice's hand as we began walking through the woods, but every now and then I would stop to pick a wild flower. I found a lone white daisy, which I stuck behind her ear, along with a handful of other flowers which she held in her other hand as we walked. When we grew closer to our tree, I pulled her along after me, leading her away from the forest trail.

"There it is!" Alice squealed pointing to a large fallen tree covered with moss. "Our tree just the way I pictured it."

It had been years since I saw our tree; in fact it had still been standing the last time we came out here to climb it. Alice told me the moment it fell: it was during a lightning storm a year and a half ago. The thunder was deafening because its point of origin was so close by. But despite the horrific noise, Alice came bouncing into the living room shouting, "It fell! It fell! It finally fell! Our tree fell, Jazz!"

I took Alice's hand and led her over to our tree. I left the picnic basket on the ground and straddled the trunk, while Alice set her flowers down and did the same facing me. It was now or never, so I leaned forward and closed my eyes and just waited. I did not have to wait long, because a moment later I felt the soft press of Alice's lips against mine.

The kiss was everything I wanted it to be: soft, sweet, and simple. I pushed Alice my love and she sent me joy, happiness, and hope in return. And then, just like that, it was over and we both pulled back. I looked into her deep brown eyes and sent her my adoration as I closed my eyes and leaned in again. And then she was radiating love and that other feeling and was kissing me back.

"You never did tell me what that one's called," I said pulling back from the kiss.

"I know. I wanna make you feel it for the first time first," she replied wrapping her arms around me and hugging her soft body tightly to mine.

"How?" I asked wrapping my arms around her in return.

"It's something two people feel when they kiss a lot," she replied before crushing her lips to my own.

It was a good thing I brushed this morning, twice, because I suddenly felt wetness on my lower lip and knew that it was Alice's tongue asking for entrance. I opened my mouth, not sure what to do at first. Alice seemed to know just what to do; she must have seen it in a vision. I felt so comfortable here on our tree with my Alice that I very quickly forgot that I was nervous and did not know what to do. And then I was kissing her back and enjoying it.

The fourth time we came up for air, I noticed it: the feeling. It started between my legs of all places. I was having trouble figuring out where exactly the feeling was coming from, so I was momentarily distracted. "You felt it!" Alice squealed pulling back from our kiss.

I nodded, but was still trying to place it when she drew her body closer to mine, closer than it had ever been before. Alice lifted her legs up and wrapped them around my back and hugged her chest to mine, before leaning up to continue our make-out session. I was very aware of Alice's proximity to the source of the feeling, which only seemed to intensify it.

It was only a moment after that when I realized where exactly the feeling was coming from: my penis. It was hard and had grown larger than in normally was. They had covered this in health class and called it an erection. Uncle Carlisle had covered erections in his many lectures on safe sex, and said to put a condom on it. Could an erection really be the source of the feeling Alice had been sending me?

I got my answer a second later when Alice shifted her hips, changing the angle at which her groin touched my own. Now I could feel something hard and firm on the other side of Alice's dress and it was pressing into me. She rubbed her body up and down my own, while gently nibbling at my lower lip.

"What's it called Alice?" I asked as she broke the kiss.

"Horny. You make me horny," she answered.

I do not know why, but for some reason that knowledge made me happy and for the first time in months, I smiled. Not a little smile, I full my-face-hurts-because-I-am-smiling-so-hard smile. "I missed that smile," Alice said smiling back at me.

Then Alice pushed me back, so that I was lying on the trunk of the tree, while I pulled my legs up, resting my feet along the log with my knees bent. She had her own legs dangling off the side of the tree as she straddled my lap, pressing herself into me. She slowly dragged her body along my own, letting me feel every bit of her length.

I smiled at Alice and pulled her head down to mine, and for the first time, crushed my lips to hers. We made out like that until my back started hurting from the hard wood of the tree trunk. And by that time, we were hungry for lunch, so we sat down on some moss and ate. Alice said it was her best birthday yet.

It happened so slowly that I did not even notice it at first, but looking back, I can see now that Alice's birthday was a turning point for me. My depression did not lift or fade away that day, but it started lessoning; it started to improve. I began to look forward to my life again and to talk to my family once more.

I was really anxious when I went back to school with everyone else in the fall, and although I did not speak for the first few weeks, I started to feel normal again. School was the same, except that now Alice was in seventh grade and went to my school with me. School plus Alice helped me get back to my same old self. And slowly I began to talk to my friends, especially my best friend Henry. Eventually I even began answering questions in class and making small talk with the other kids again.

And because I now had school all day, my therapy was reduced down to two hours three times a week. Even having less therapy made me feel more normal. I have always hated therapy, so just the fact that I had to go made me depressed. When my therapy load lightened, it felt like a burden was being lifted from my chest.

And as I got over my depression, I began to pay attention to my family again. I could not even remember what had been going on in their lives when I was going through my depression, so I was a little surprised to learn that not all was well with them. Emmett and Russell were arguing, because Emmett was still a virgin and Russell would not sleep with him. And Edward seemed to be molding himself to Jacob and just letting his boyfriend push him around.

Emmett and I were the only two kids with a uterus in the house, and that fact seemed to bring us closer together. Emmett would come to me and tell me how upset it made him that Russell had had no problem sleeping with Bella, but yet Russell still refused to sleep with him. Those two had only been together for about six months though, so Russell seemed to think he was perfectly justified in waiting a few years to take the relationship to the next level. Emmett, however, could not help thinking that Russell was holding out on him because he was not good enough. But Russell just kept insisting that that was not the case and he just did not want to be a whore and sleep with Emmett before they were in a serious committed relationship.

And as many problems as Russell and Emmett seemed to have, Edward and Jacob had at least twice that number. It started off with Edward being overly eager to please Jacob and do things his boyfriend wanted to do. But over the past year or so that they have been together, Edward had completely stopped doing all of the things he loved, such as playing the piano and cross dressing. Well the cross dressing had really stopped with Bobby, but Jacob would still brush Edward off whenever he mentioned that he liked a dress.

Jacob liked to hike and cliff dive, so now those were Edward's hobbies too. Edward used to have friends besides Jacob, but Bella had moved away and he hardly spent any time with our family anymore. And when he was hanging out with us, it was always with Jacob. It was like they were glued at the hip and Edward could only spend time by himself if that was what Jacob wanted. And Jacob did not even seem to realize he was doing it.

But I still had my depression to work through, so I really was not at the point of being able to help my siblings out yet. And Alice and I were just beginning the physical side of our relationship, which was all so new for me that it took up a lot of my time. Although, we did make sure to obey my aunt and uncle's rules and did not take it too far: we limited ourselves to making out.

And so time passed and one day I woke up and realized that I was no longer depressed. I still had the periods to deal with, but they no longer made me want to end it all. The gleam off of a sharp blade still caught my eye occasionally, but it no longer induced an urge in me to cut myself. And although I still wanted my female parts removed, I learned to live with them and still be me.


	42. Chapter 41

Author's Note: Warning there is a lemon in this chapter and the werewolves make their first appearance.

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><p>Edward's POV:<p>

I just finished ninth grade and school was let out for the summer. It was quickly approaching my fifteenth birthday and mine and Jacob's two year anniversary. Mom had a big pool party planned for me, which I was a bit nervous about, because she had invited all of my friends from school and a bunch of kids that I was not really friends with. If they were friends with Emmett, Russell, Jasper, or Alice, they were invited. Even some of Jacob's friends from the reservation were invited.

The problem with so many people being invited was that most of these people did not know that Jacob and I were dating. Sure everyone knew that Russell and Emmett were dating and all three of us had come out of the closet together. Jacob's friends and family knew he was gay and some of them even knew about me, but Jasper and Alice's friends did not know. Up until now Jacob and I had managed to keep our relationship low-key and most people did not know we were an item. I was turning fifteen and Jacob would be sixteen in another five months, which meant we were growing up and it was time we announced our relationship status to the world.

Jacob and I had talked a lot about going public. Having Emmett and Russell for brothers certainly made it easier for us, because two boys kissing was not anything new for our town. But both Emmett and Russell were bi, meaning that they also liked women. Russell had had sex with Bella, while the whole school had seen Emmett feeling up Lauren Mallory. Two boys kissing was much easier to except when they were not completely gay and had not even gone all of the way yet.

But Jacob and I were both completely gay, because neither of us had ever even thought about kissing a girl. It was just gross to us, while kissing another man was natural and right. We had both known who we were for as long as we could remember. We were even each other's first kiss back in preschool. Our relationship was hot as fire, intense, and fast-paced, and we just did not want to hide it any longer.

So at my pool party, Jacob and I were going to act our normal flirty selves, make-out whenever we felt like it, and just let the other kids from school see for themselves how much we loved each other. I figured at some point we would be asked if we were an item, and when that happens, we will admit that we have been seeing and sleeping with each other for two years.

It was a big revelation, but Jacob and I had talked about it and thought that we were prepared. But spending the day hanging out at a pool party filled with people was not exactly our idea of a romantic anniversary. So to make up for it, Jacob and I were having our anniversary today, I week early. The party was next Saturday, so this Saturday would be just about the two of us.

We started our evening off in the kitchen: Jacob came over and cooked for us, while I tried to help. I was now the second best cook among the Cullen kids, thanks to all the time I had spent cooking with Jacob, but that was not saying much. Emmett, who was the third best cook among us, earned that rank by being able to boil water for macaroni and cheese and spaghetti, toast bread, and microwave stuff. Jasper, who was the fourth best cook, new how to put strawberries in an already made pie crust and drizzle strawberry glaze on top and call it strawberry pie. Alice could not even make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without getting kicked out of the kitchen for her ineptitude.

For our anniversary, Jacob made spaghetti with homemade sauce, meatballs, and garlic bread. I helped roll up the meatballs and buttered the bread. When our meal was really, we set the picnic table on the side lawn for a dinner for two, while the rest of my family ate in the dining room. Alice had left a romantic candle out in the middle of the picnic table, so I lit it and we ate by candle light as the sun set over the forest.

After diner, we dropped off our plates in the sink, where Jasper and Alice were doing the dishes: it was one of their chores for the day. But Jacob and I did not even make it back out into the front yard before he grabbed me and kissed me passionately. We groped each other the entire way to the garage; each of us hungry for the other.

Sex with Jacob was like rereading a favorite book over and over again: wild, hot, passionate, predictable, and preplanned down to the last detail. Jacob liked things the way he liked it. He liked me to top first and only then would he consent to top me. He liked cycling through his list of preferred positions from our Kama Sutra book, but he did not like to go out of order. If we were up for doggy style and reverse cowboy today, then that is what we did, no discussion was necessary or welcomed.

So I knew ahead of time what we would be doing, which took away from the excitement somewhat, but we were still young and in love and any sex with Jacob was hot. In the last two years, I had grown to be six feet tall, while Jacob was now six seven. I was in shape, but he looked like a muscle builder. He thought I looked manly, but he was so much larger that I felt pleasantly dominated.

As soon as we made our way up the ladder to the loft, Jacob was tearing my clothes off. I unfastened his shirt, belt, and pants, but with his overwhelming height, I just had to wait for him to slow down and cooperate with me in order to get his clothes off of him. So I was always completely naked before I even managed to get his shirt all of the way off, but that did not seem to bother him, so I just went with it.

As soon as we were naked, we each went to the cabinet to grab the supplies we knew we would need. I grabbed my condom, hand sanitizer, and a dental dam, while he grabbed his lube and a towel. Jacob spread the towel down, before pulling me into his embrace and down onto the bed. We made out passionately, with my erection pressing against his hip and his against my thigh, until the allotted five minutes was up. Jacob was predictable to the point where I could time our make-out sessions.

As soon as Jacob was done making out with me, he pulled back and whispered in my ear, "I want you to suck me Tink." He always whispered that in my ear every time we did this position. He had different preparatory requests for each position, but oral and fingering was the old stand-by for this one, which is why I had made sure to grab the dental dam.

I knew Jacob hated all of the condoms and dental dams. We were both clean as evidenced by regular STD tests and we were exclusive and had only ever slept with each other. Any other partner would have been throwing away the protection by now, and I knew Jacob wished to be among them; not even my dad's warning that I would get sick would have stopped him.

But the one thing that did keep Jacob using protection was all of the infections I got. I used to get one or two a year, but for the last two years during which I have been sexually active, I have gotten a total of nine urinary tract infections. We were doing everything we could to be safe, but it just was not enough to keep me from getting sick. And every time I got sick, I was out of commission in the sex department. So Jacob made sure to use protection religiously, hoping that if he was just a little bit more careful, I would not get sick.

Personally, I was not convinced that the sex was the only reason for the increased number of infections, but I was not about to tell Jacob that: anything to keep him following my father's rule a little longer. Ever since Jacob and I have been together, we have done a lot more swimming in the ocean, even going a few times in the spring and fall, when before I would go once a year tops. It seemed to me that at least four of those infections had occurred within days of going diving in the Pacific. I probably should have stopped diving to test out this hypothesis, but I was too chicken to try.

"I love sucking you Spider Monkey," I replied tearing open the dental dam. We probably could have used regular condoms, but these tasted better and my dad said they were specifically designed for oral protection. These were also convenient on missionary days when Jacob wanted me to give him a rim job first.

I spread the dental dam over his erection, before lubing up my finger. I ran the tip of my finger around his entrance as I flicked my tongue out to make contact with his head. He was always warm, but I noticed that he seemed particularly hot today. With one hand I gently pushed into his anus, while the other I used to pull down his foreskin.

I used my free hand to steady his cock as I began to lick, while I fingered his ass. I had long dainty piano-playing fingers, so I never had any trouble finding his prostate and stimulating it by hand. After two years of being together, I knew Jacob's body better than I knew my own. I knew that after exactly thirty-eight swipes of his gland, Jacob would scream out, "Tink! Please fuck me already!"

That was my cue to remove my finger and get on with the show. And today was like any other day, so right on schedule Jacob begged me to fuck him, and I complied. I grabbed the long body pillow, which we used for this position and a few others. Whenever Jacob's large body size made penetration awkward, this pillow came out to give me a few extra inches here or there.

I liked to make love, to take my time with Jacob and go slow and gentle. And I knew the best time to do this was when we were first starting, while he was still adjusting to my size. I had grown another quarter of an inch, so I was now packing four and three quarter inches of solid cock.

As I was grabbing the pillow, Jacob turned on his side, hugging his legs to his chest, just like I knew he would. I laid the pillow down lengthwise behind him, and then used the hand sanitizer before grabbing my condom and putting it on. A few more drips of lube and I was ready: I knelt behind his ass and slowly pushed in. I pulled out completely three times before pushing all of the way in.

As soon as I was in, I held his hip, keeping me inside of him, as I changed my position. I lied down on my pillow, pressing my chest to his back. As soon as I was down and in position, Jacob lifted his head and I slid my left arm underneath. My right hand I kept on his hip as I slowly began to pull out again.

Being on our sides like this was old and familiar, but nice, warm, and comfortable at the same time. I slowly thrust into Jacob, going as deep as I could before rolling my hips, and pulling out and starting the process all over again. And as I made love to him, I used my mouth to leave trails of kisses along his body; everywhere that I could reach. Sometimes he would throw his head back and I would be able to get a nip in at the back of his neck. Other times he would tuck his head forward, jutting out his shoulders, which I would place gentle opened-mouthed kisses upon. And sometimes I would just trail my lips up and down his spine.

I tried to make this first part, this gentle and slow part, last as long as possible. Not touching Jacob's member helped with that, because as long as he was not too excited, he would let me go slow and easy. But eventually, he would always take my hand from his hip and guide it to in between his legs to his erect penis.

When Jacob did that, it was my sign to change positions, throwing the pillow away and kneeling behind him. I would then do my best to slam into him as hard, fast, and deep as possible, while maintaining my grip on his eager cock. I would place my left hand on his right shoulder to steady myself and allowing me to thrust with more power. Sometimes I would lose control and find myself coming too soon, before Jacob had gotten off. But most of the time I was able to stave off my orgasm, because I was only receiving stimulation from one of my erotic zones when I topped.

Bottoming was so much better in that it had the possibility of stimulating all of my erotic zones simultaneously; that is if Jacob was feeling generous enough to do so. But in order to get to bottoming, topping was a necessary chore I had to complete. So I went through the motions, just like any other time, and did my best to bring Jacob pleasure.

I swear Jacob's cock came with a timer, because at exactly twenty-three minutes after we started, he shot his load and I followed after. Every time we used this position it took him exactly twenty-three minutes to finish. Sometimes I wondered if he was looking at the clock on the wall and holding out until he reached that mark, because he did not want to cum too soon or something. But then I never saw him peeking up at the clock and I did not think he could possibly be that anal as to time our sex. He probably had not even noticed that he was so predictable.

As soon as our first round was done, I removed my condom and went to the bathroom, washed my hands, and retrieved a hand towel, which I wet with hot water before returning. We still used the baby wipes on occasion, like when we did not have access to a sink, but we had found the warm sensation of the towel much more soothing. Wiping his cum off of his body was now an act of love.

Jacob had shot his load everywhere, again. I started with wiping the cum off of his thighs and hip. I have to admit that his cum on his thighs and hip was my doing, because he had gotten quite a bit of it on my hand, and my hand had smeared it around his thighs and hip when I got up to use the bathroom.

As soon as I finished wiping his genitals clean, he turned over onto his back, separating his body from the large pool of cum on the towel that had been underneath him. I quickly wiped his stomach, before slowly making my way up his chest, and getting the little bit of cum that once again made its way to his chin. How he managed to shoot his load so hard it sprayed his own chin, I will never know, but it was sexy so I leaned down and gave him a peck on the lips.

He held me there for a minute locked in a passionate kiss, but then he let me up to dispose of the used hand towel as well as the larger cum-covered towel. Then I washed my hands again and came back to join him on the bed. He wrapped me in his arms and held me so tightly that I quickly fell asleep. I always felt so safe and secure in his warm arms that I fell asleep. Today was no exception and Jacob was feeling particularly hot.

I woke up to the feeling of Jacob's hot fingers pressing into my ass: he was already preparing me for my turn. He must have turned me over in my sleep, because I was now lying on my stomach with my butt propped up in the air by a pillow. My arms were above my head and I instinctively reached out to fist the sheets as Jacob pressed into my prostate. But I was stopped in my movement by a pull from my wrists. I looked up to see that Jacob had handcuffed me again.

Jacob had gotten tired of trying to restrain my hands from touching myself during sex about a year ago and ever since, he has been making me wear the cuffs. They were soft and fur-lined and had a foot of chain in the middle, so they were not too uncomfortable to have on. A foot of length gave me just enough freedom to vary the position of my arms slightly, but not enough to get anywhere near my cock, which was now hard and begging for attention.

I let out a groan of frustration at being woken up like this. Jacob leaned over me and planted a soft kiss on my lips before saying, "None of that. This's my turn to pleasure you Tinker Bell and I won't have you touching yourself before I'm ready." I let out another groan and settled in to enjoy the delicious fingering I was receiving. "Good boy. Now if you behave, I have a treat for you for our anniversary."

I was always wary of Jacob's treats, because we had a different definition of the word. Jacob used the word treat to describe anything from whipped cream and flavored lube, to handcuffs and dildos. I did not mind when he tried to spice up life in the bedroom, because as I have said, it is extremely predictable. But sometimes my Spider Monkey would get carried away with the toys when all I really wanted was missionary on a doggy style day.

But this was our anniversary, so maybe he had taken into consideration my preferences and gotten something we would both enjoy. And his finger was pressing deliciously into my prostate over and over again, so I decided to relax and just go with it. I started grinding my groin into the pillow beneath me when I realized that Jacob had already placed a towel beneath me. The soft cloth was providing wonderful friction.

"What position do you want for our anniversary Tinker Bell?" Jacob asked me. I was a bit surprised by this, because I knew we were up for doggy-style again. Maybe letting me choose the position was part of my gift.

I really did want Missionary more than doggy-style today, so I answered, "Missionary, so I can look into your eyes while you pound me Spider Monkey."

"Well then missionary it is," he replied reaching for my handcuffs.

I knew he was going to unfasten one so that I could flip over and then he would refasten it. If I really wanted to get a grab in at my penis now was the time to do it. But I also knew that there was no fighting him on this and one way or another, my hands would end up right back in the cuffs: Jacob was just so much bigger and stronger than me that I did not even have a chance.

So as soon as the left cuff was off, I slipped my left hand down and got in about two strokes of my dick, before Jacob turned me over and stilled my hand saying, "None of that Tink. You're being a very bad boy and I've got a different anniversary present for bad boys."

The way he said it sent a tingle down my spine and I instinctively knew that I would not like this other present. So I tried to pull my left arm away and struggled under his grasp, trying to get away before he put the handcuffs back on. I loved Jacob, but sometimes I just wanted to get away from him.

"You're being a very naughty boy today Tinker Bell," Jacob said pinning my chest down to the bed with his knee, while holding the cuff, and thereby my right arm, with his left hand. Then he grabbed my left wrist with his other hand and snapped the cuff back around it. "But I'm not gonna punish you just yet."

Instead of spanking me, which he normally did when he said I needed to be punished, he pushed his lips to mine and licked my lips until I opened up for him. If this was my punishment today, then I would gladly take it. Truthfully I was just so grateful that he was not going to spank me again that I did not really care what my punishment was: I really hated being spanked.

After Jacob pulled his mouth away from mine, he kissed his way down my body, stopping to suck each of my nipples before he continued down. When he got to my groin, he pulled out a dental dam from a pile of supplies he had on the side of the bed, but skipped my penis entirely: he placed the dam squarely over my balls and anus.

I looked over at Jacob's pile of supplies to see if I could determine what I was in for. There was my bottle of lube, the hand sanitizer, and one of his condoms, which were standard whenever I bottomed. But there was nothing else there to indicate what my surprise or punishment would be: there were no sex toys or whipped cream of any kind. Whatever Jacob was planning, he must be keeping it out of my sight.

Jacob added a little more lube to my anus and proceeded to give me a rather hot rim job. His tongue was wide, thick, and hot and he really knew how to use it. It was not as long as his cock or even his fingers, and he could not reach my prostate with it. But he did tongue my opening until I was bucking my hips up into the air, begging for release.

Jacob reached out and stilled my hips, before moving up to my balls. He sucked and lapped at each one through the dental dam, sending a tingle from my balls straight to my dick. I could see a bead of precum dribbling out of my tip. Jacob must have seen it too, because he reached down and swiped it off of my head with his finger, before inserting it into his mouth. After that he threw away the dental dam, put his condom on, and applied a generous amount of lube to his shaft. Then he added two pillows underneath me to adjust my height.

"Are you ready Tink?" he asked me placing his head at my entrance.

I nodded and relaxed and he slowly entered me. Even after two years, Jacob's massive cock still felt big to me every time. Once his head was in, he remained still for a moment, before pulling back out completely. He did this three times and I knew it was because he liked seeing himself entering me. He kept asking me if he could video tape us together like this, but I refused because my parents would not approve.

On the fourth time he entered me, he pushed further in before pulling back just a little. He continued to push in and pull out, each time going a little deeper within me. Once he was all the way inside me, he stopped to adjust our position. "I wish you could be trusted without those cuffs so that you could hold yours legs Tinker Bell," he said helping me to fold my legs on top of my chest, just how he wanted them.

"I'll be good," I lied, holding myself how he wanted me.

"You never are. In fact I never punished you from earlier," he replied reaching to the side of the bed and picking up a wooden paddle from the floor. I had never seen the paddle before, so this must be my anniversary surprise. He probably put it there before waking me up.

"No Jacob, please no!" I begged, squirming on the bed to try to get away from him and in the process, moving my legs back down. But Jacob had me handcuffed to the bed and his penis was still inside me and he had his right hand holding onto my hip, so I just could not get very far away from him.

"You aren't being very good, Tink," Jacob warned.

"I told you that I don't like to be spanked. Please don't spank me," I begged again, this time trying to work my hips so that his cock would disengage from my ass hole; maybe then it would be easier to get away.

"I told you before that it's just for fun. I'll be gentle," he replied lifting me up a bit and switching to a kneeling position.

"Please no!" I cried as he used his newfound access to my ass to pop me on the cheek with the paddle. He did not hit me hard, as promised, but still I did not like it. It was only a light smack, but it made my balls want to crawl up inside me and my erection faded.

"Just relax and get into it," he said as he set the paddle down next to him and took my limp dick into his hands. "If you stop fighting it so much I think you'll enjoy it."

"No, I wanna get up. Please let me up, Jacob," I begged flailing my legs, trying to get away from him. But no matter how I moved, I just could not get away.

"Stop flailing and don't call me Jacob: I'm your Spider Monkey. Now you've earned yourself another one."

Jacob had a weird gleam in his eyes as he reached back down to grab the paddle with the hand that had been on my dick. He switched hands, so that the one that he had been using to hold me down was now on my penis as he tried to stroke it back to life. I thought that maybe without the hand on my hip, I would be able to move more, but he just pushed me down whenever I bucked up, and now he had the paddle again.

This time when he hit me, I felt it in my stomach. It felt like a hundred tiny butterflies churning around in there. Luckily I had not eaten since our dinner and it was now very late, so my stomach was pretty empty. I froze when he hit me and it occurred to me that if I stayed still, he would probably not hit me again: he did say the spanks were punishments for my bad behavior.

"Are you ready to be good now Tinker Bell?" he asked me, putting the paddle back down. I nodded, hoping that he would not hit me again if I played along. "Good. Are you gonna get hard for me again?"

"Hold on, give me a minute," I answered trying to calm down, but the butterflies were still racing in my stomach.

He must have thought that this meant he should stimulate my prostate to help me get hard again, but when he pushed his finger into me, it really hurt, because I was not relaxed. "Stop, I'm not ready yet," I pleaded. He stopped, but I felt the knots in my stomach getting worse. I felt the bile rising up, so I turned my head and tried to warn him. "I'm gonna barf."

The remnants of dinner came up with a yellowish hue from all of the stomach acid and I just barely avoided choking on it as my stomach emptied onto the pillow beside my head. "What the fuck Tink?" Jacob asked me with anger in his voice.

At first I felt relieved when he got up, thinking that he was going to let me up and help me clean up. But instead he grabbed his paddle and turned me over onto my side. I tried to fight him, but he was just too strong and held me in place with one hand as he brought the paddle down on my ass with the other.

"Please stop! Please no!" I screamed as he hit me again.

I was not sure how many times he hit me or how many times I screamed out in pain, but I do know what stopped him: the garage door opened. "Edward? Are you okay?" I heard Russell's voice ask. "What's going on?"

"He's fine," Jacob replied pausing with his paddle.

"Then why's he crying? Emmett, stay here, I'm going up. Put some clothes on or cover up because I'm coming to check on him," Russell replied. Was I crying? Maybe I was; that would explain the sobbing noises I heard.

Jacob grabbed a towel and covered me, while wrapping a second one around his own waist as we heard Russell climb up the ladder. "He's fine, don't come up here," Jacob said adjusting his towel.

"Let me hear him say that then," Russell said ascending the ladder. When he reached the top, he looked at me. "What'd he do to you Edward? Why's he tied up Jacob!"

"Stay back!" Jacob screamed at my brother, blocking him from reaching me. "He's fine and you're one to talk: you won't even bed your own boyfriend, so you've got no right telling me how to bed mine!"

"Emmett and I've got nothing to do with this! If he's fine, then why's he crying? And what's that smell?" Russell yelled his questions at Jacob.

"He's not feeling well. I can take care of him!" Jacob snarled, still blocking Russell's attempts to get to me.

"No. He's my brother and if you don't step aside I'm gonna send Emmett into the house to call the police!" Russell warned.

"This's none of your business! He's mine, now back off!" Jacob roared starting to tremble.

Russell instinctively backed away, back towards the ladder, as Jacob continued to tremble and snarl: he looked like a rabid dog about to attack. I must have been sicker than I thought, because I started hallucinating. I swear I saw Jacob turn into a giant wolf right before my very eyes.

And then there was a giant red wolf snarling down at my brother Russell. "Run Russell, run!" I yelled from my position trapped on the bed.

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><p>Author's Note: So now we know why Jake has been acting weird, but that doesn't excuse what he just did to Edward. Do you think their relationship will survive?<p> 


	43. Chapter 42

Edward's POV:

_Russell instinctively backed away, back towards the ladder, as Jacob continued to tremble and snarl: he looked like a rabid dog about to attack. I must have been sicker than I thought, because I started hallucinating. I swear I saw Jacob turn into a giant wolf right before my very eyes. _

_And then there was a giant red wolf snarling down at my brother Russell. "Run Russell, run!" I yelled from my position trapped on the bed._

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><p>Russell did not have anywhere to run to, except for back down the ladder as the wolf turned from Russell to me. He looked down at me, and for a second I saw his face turn from seething rage to soft concern, but then he turned back to Russell. "Please, don't hurt Rus!" I pleaded as the wolf slowly stalked towards my brother.<p>

But instead of attacking Russell, the wolf turned and jumped over the half wall that separated the loft from the garage. "Open the garage Emmett!" Russell yelled as I stared at where the wolf had just been.

"Whoa! Where'd that wolf come from!" Emmett yelled out as I heard the garage opening.

The half wall was only a few feet long and was by the ladder, and as I stared at it, I began to think that the wolf had walked in Russell's direction to escape over the half wall, not to attack my brother. But that was a very human thing for a wolf to do.

"Where're the keys for the cuffs Tink?" Russell asked slowly walking over to me. Maybe he was in shock over the wolf; I know I was.

"The keys Edward?" Russell asked me anxiously. "Hurry before that giant wolf comes back!"

I nodded my head in the direction of the counter where Jacob had left the keys. Russell followed my head movement and noticed the keys. He quickly retrieved them before uncuffing me. As soon as I was free, I wrapped my arms around myself in the fetal position and just lay there crying.

"Did he hurt you? Do you want to go to the hospital?" Russell asked me concerned.

I did not really know what to say. I had not liked the end and had been trying to get away, but Jacob was my boyfriend and I had consented to the sex at first. "I'm not sure," I finally admitted after thinking about it for a few moments.

"What happened?" I heard my mom call as she approached. Emmett must have gotten her.

"Jacob and a wolf, and Edward's crying," Russell explained disjointedly after walking over towards the half wall so that she could hear and see him.

"What?" Mom asked confused at Russell's explanation.

"Jacob was here hurting Edward. They were having kinky sex or something. And then he was gone and there was a big giant wolf. I was so busy staring at the wolf that I didn't see where Jacob went," Russell replied.

It did make a bit more since to think that the wolf was not Jacob and had merely distracted us while Jacob left. But then where did the wolf come from?

"Mom! He's not dressed! You can't come up here!" Russell shouted over the half wall before running back over to me. "Mom's coming up, so we better cover you up a little better." Russell adjusted the towel that was still over me before going into the bathroom.

"What happened to you Tink?" Mom asked as she ascended the ladder just as Russell came back out of the bathroom with a robe.

"Jacob did something to him," Russell replied as they both walked over to me. The towel was only covering my butt, hips, and groin, so Russell grabbed my right arm and started inserting it into the robe.

"Did Jacob rape you sweetie?" Mom asked leaning over me and feeling my forehead.

I was not really sure how to describe it, but eventually the words that came out of my mouth were, "No…. he hit me."

Mom gasped at my admission. And that combined with the state of the loft room must have really freaked her out, because she replied, "Come on; let's take you to the hospital."

I did not really have much choice in the matter and my head was spinning and my stomach was still churning, so I let Russell help me into the robe and went along with them to the hospital. Taking us to the hospital to see Dad was Mom's response to everything, especially when he was there anyway working the nightshift, so I did not think it would really be that big of deal. Dad would look me over, give me some water, say I was fine, and send me back home with Mom to rest.

But I must have looked worse than I thought, because Dad admitted me to the emergency room when I arrived. Mom had called and told him we were on our way, and afterwards Russell and Emmett had taken the phone and tried to describe what had happened. But their story did not make since, and Jasper told them so from the backseat.

Jasper and Alice had already been asleep for the night, but Mom had woken them up and dragged them out of bed to go with us, just because they were only twelve and thirteen and too young to stay home alone. "All I'm saying is giant wolves don't climb up ladders to the loft above the garage," Jasper had insisted from the back seat. "Alice, did you see any giant wolves around our house in your visions?"

"No. I didn't see anything, not even Tink getting hurt. It wasn't until Mom was already with him that a vision of us all taking him to the hospital woke me up," Alice had replied. "Sorry Tink, I wasn't watching for you. I try not to watch when you guys do stuff in the garage."

So the arguing had continued and by the time we got to the hospital, everyone had agreed to change the story to the garage was open the entire time and the wolf came out of the forest. Everyone was so busy looking at the giant wolf that we did not notice Jacob exiting the garage and fleeing into the woods. Everyone agreed that this new version of events made more sense and I was still a little fuzzy headed, so I agreed to go along with it.

I was lying in a bed in the emergency room while my siblings told our father the new and improved version of events. Then Dad sent everyone away and asked me in excruciating detail what Jacob had done to me to make me so upset. I tried to get out of answering, because it was more than a little embarrassing to talk to my dad about my sex life and a big part of why I was upset was the wolf which I somehow saw from my position laying down on the bed in the garage.

But my dad just kept questioning me, so eventually I caved and told him the whole story, starting from when I woke up handcuffed to the bed, to when Jacob and Russell were arguing. I ended by saying, "And then I saw Jacob run off into the forest with the giant wolf."

"Okay Edward, you do realize that it's called rape when you say no and to stop, but your partner continues, don't you?" my dad asked leaning over me with a look of concern on his face.

"No, I consented at first. I just wanted him to stop at the end because he hurt me and I wasn't feeling well," I tried to defend my boyfriend. "And he was stopping when Russell arrived."

"No, he stopped because Russell arrived; there's a difference. This isn't your fault and you have nothing to be ashamed about. You don't need to lie for Jacob."

"I'm not lying, he didn't rape me," I insisted.

"Tink, I know a rape victim when I see one. Your body's in shock from the rape, so you're not thinking clearly. You'll feel better after you've gotten some rest, so for now Nurse Brenda's going to wheel you to your room. Chief Swan will be here in the morning to take your statement. We'll talk about this more in the morning," Dad said.

I was tired and it was now very late, so I closed my eyes and fell asleep instantly, before even being moved. When I woke up again, I was already in a private room and Chief Swan was in the room with me. "Hello Edward, how're you feeling this morning?" he asked me.

My head was still spinning a bit, probably from lack of sleep, because it was really early in the morning and it had been well past midnight before I had fallen asleep. "A little confused still," I admitted sitting up in the bed.

"Can you tell me what happened with you and Jacob?" he asked me.

I repeated my story hoping that Charlie would be a more neutral person to talk to than my dad, because he also knew Jacob. He nodded along with me as I spoke and wrote a few notes down and asked a few questions like, "Edward, are you being one hundred percent truthful with me?" I nodded, but he did not seem to believe me. "You don't have to cover for Jacob, this isn't your fault. He needs to take responsibility for his actions. I've seen guys like him before and if he isn't punished for this now, then the violence will only escalate. You're not gonna be in trouble, I just need the full story. I need you to tell me what Jacob did to you."

"I did tell you," I protested.

"No one blames you or is going to judge you or think less of you because this happened. It's not your fault," he said, as if saying it would change what had happened.

When I did not reply, he continued, "Edward, I've been to the crime scene already. It's so bad that my officers are still there collecting all of the evidence. I saw the evidence with my own eyes and I read your medical report, so I know what he did to you, I just need you to confirm it."

"I already did. We were having sex and he handcuffed me. Then he got mad and started spanking me. I got sick and threw up. That's what happened," I insisted.

"Then why were you in shock? A mild sexual assault like you're describing wouldn't've caused this level of shock."

"That's probably from seeing the giant wolf. It was really scary."

"And the trauma to your genitals? And the contusions all over your hips and butt?"

"What trauma and contusions?" I asked confused. Sure my cock still hurt from when Jacob had kept trying to stroke it to life, because he was gripping me too hard. And at first my ass had stung a little from his finger, but I was not aware of any trauma and it was fine now. Dad always used the word contusion to mean bruise and I could see how I could have bruises from when he spanked me and maybe on my hip from where he had been holding me, but I had not seen any. Then again I had just woken up and not really looked; maybe that would explain why my butt cheeks hurt.

Charlie opened a file he had with him, pulled out a page, and said, "The medical report lists contusions to the buttocks, left hip, and on the phallus and small tears in the lining and sphincter of the anus, consistent with rape."

"We were having sex before."

"Does Jacob normally hurt you like this during sex?" he asked, not believing me.

"No, he was just a little rougher this time." I had gotten bruises before, but I bruised easily and I always made sure to hide them from my dad.

"Let's be honest here, there was also plenty of lube found in the affected area. Maybe you could have minor anal tearing if you'd consented to sex without lube, but to have that level of damage _with_ that much lube doesn't happen during normal sexual activities. I think that Jacob raped you and was trying to use the lube to minimize the damage from the rape, so that he wouldn't get in trouble. That's what the crime scene says, that's what the medical report says, and that's what the witnesses say. You're the only one so far who seems to think that you consented to being raped."

"What witnesses?

"Your brother Russell already gave a statement to the effect that he heard you crying and screaming for Jacob to stop while Jacob beat you with a paddle. When he climbed the ladder, he saw you handcuffed to the bed in a puddle of your own vomit. He said you were scared and traumatized and confused when he found you. And that you just laid there when he got the cuffs off and you didn't even move to try to clean yourself up. Your mother and Emmett gave corroborating statements."

"I guess, but he didn't see Jacob rape me."

"At the very least this was a much more serious sexual assault than you described. There was no way you could've seen the wolf while you were handcuffed to the bed. We did find some rather large paw prints in the forest outside, so there may have been a wolf and Emmett and Russell may have seen it and told you about it, but I don't believe you saw it yourself. It's an excuse you're using to distract from the rape and it's a pretty poor excuse at that."

I did not really know what to say to that, so I just shrugged.

"This is your last chance to tell me the truth. You're not to blame for this. Jacob is a minor, so he's only going to Juvenile Hall when you admit what he did. But most importantly it'll enable him to get treatment and counseling for his problem. Sexual predators start out with abusing their boyfriends, like Jacob did to you, but then it escalates. If you don't tell the truth and he doesn't get help, he could graduate to becoming a hardcore rapist and even to murdering his victims. Are you going to let that happen?"

Again I shrugged, because that seemed to be the only response I could think of. I was tired of arguing and Charlie just did not seem to want to hear what I had to say.

"Fine, then would you like to know what's happening with Jacob?" he asked and I nodded.

"We've got enough to charge him with the sexual assault; you're statement corroborates that much, so he'll get Juvi for that. As to the rape, it'll be the prosecutor's decision whether to go through with the charge. I talked to Billy Black and asked him to bring Jacob down to the station for questioning and booking. Do you want me to keep going?"

"What if I testify that Jacob didn't assault or rape me?" I asked.

"Well that would be perjury, which is illegal and you'd get in trouble. Plus, it wouldn't help Jacob with the sexual assault charges, because you've already admitted that much. It might help with the rape charge, but that might be dropped anyway. But none of that can happen until Jacob is found and brought to justice," Charlie said.

"What do you mean?" I asked confused. Was Jacob lost?

"Jacob ran away, which is another sign of his guilt. Billy said some of the other Quileutes saw Jacob running in the forest with a pack of giant wolves during the night, but he never came home. Billy has some men out there trying to track him and he'll make sure his son comes to see me just as soon as he finds him. And if he's left the rez, my men will find him, so he won't be able to hide for long.

"Billy said he wanted to stop by this morning to apologize to you on behalf of his son. What do you think?"

"I'd like to see him."

Charlie nodded and said he would pass along the message and get back to me with any new developments if I wanted to know. Right now he was concentrating his men on finding Jacob and documenting the crime scene, also known as the loft above the garage. Then he left and I was all alone in the room again.

I was still really tired, so I went back to sleep, and this time Billy Black was there with a few other Quileutes when I woke up. There was an older man who I recognized as Seth's father and a younger man who looked even taller and stronger than Jacob. "Hello Edward. You remember Harry right? And this is Sam Uley," Billy said indicating the older and younger men, respectively. "Sam's helping us find Jacob."

"Is he still out in the woods then?" I asked confused. How could Jacob go so long without going home? And why would he want to?

"Yes. We tracked him north into Makah territory," Sam replied. "He seems to be fleeing towards the Canadian border."

"But I don't want to press charges! I told my Dad and Chief Swan that. He wasn't trying to hurt me. Can you please tell him to come home? I-I-I need to talk to him," I said starting to break-up at the end there.

"Edward, Charlie told me you saw a wolf with Jacob. How much did you see?" Billy asked me, not answering my question.

I was a little confused with how to respond. I had already lied to the Chief of Police about not seeing Jacob turn into a giant wolf, because it just did not make sense. But Mr. Black seemed to be asking me about just that. Did he know I had seen his son turn into a wolf? Had Jacob turned into a wolf before? If he had, why did he not tell me about it?

"Has he done this before?" I asked, trying to be vague in case he did not already know.

"No, but it runs in the tribe. It hasn't happened for a few generations. What did you see Edward?" Mr. Black asked me.

"I saw Jacob turn into a giant red wolf," I admitted. "He was in my garage and almost attacked my brother. But then he ran away into the forest."

"Thank you for covering up for us: white men don't know about the shifting gene and we'd like to keep it that way. Jacob's still a wolf, which is why he can't come home or go see Charlie."

"Is-is he gonna be a wolf forever?" I asked horrified.

"No. Eventually he'll learn to control himself and he'll eventually turn back into a boy. But I have to tell you how sorry we all are that this happened while he was with you: we had no idea he was going to shift. When someone shifts for the first time, they become very violent, uncharacteristically so. They can lose control of their anger and hurt someone when they don't mean to or wouldn't under ordinary circumstances. I'm not trying to make excuses for my son, but I think this was partially my fault for not noticing beforehand," he explained.

"So he was only hurting me because he was changing to a wolf for the first time?" I asked.

"There's still no excuse for what he did, but partly."

"So as soon as he changes back he'll be back to normal?" I asked hopefully.

"Not quite. New wolves can lose their tempers like that for the first year or so, so I'm gonna have to ask that he stays away from you until then."

"Oh…" I replied dejectedly. I had been hoping to see Jacob again. Part of me hoped that he would apologize and swear to never hurt me again and beg me to take him back.

"And I don't think your dad wants him anywhere near you after how he acted in the garage."

"But if he didn't mean it because of the wolf thing…"

"He still's gonna need a long time to learn to control his wolf. But if you'd like, Harry's son Seth would like to see you."

"Is Seth a wolf too?" I asked with wide-eyes wondering how many wolves there were.

"No. Sam here is one, but Seth isn't. He only knows about the wolves because his older sister Leah is also a wolf."

"Leah's a wolf?" I asked in disbelief.

"She's chasing Jacob up into Canada where he won't be able to hurt anyone else right now," Sam spoke for the first time.

"Oh…" I could not think of what to say.

"So would you like my son to come sit with you?" Harry asked gently, speaking for the first time.

"Um…how many wolves are there?" I asked. I wanted to get this out of the way first.

"Three now. Just Sam, Leah, and Jacob. When there's a pack, two or three is the typical pack size, so we don't expect anyone else to shift. There's not even enough threat in the area to justify three," Billy explained.

"Threat?" I asked confused.

"Our tribe only produces a pack when there's danger nearby. There's no new danger, so we aren't sure why the wolves came to us. Maybe it's just a fluke," Billy replied.

"Are you a wolf too?" I asked, the thought having just occurred to me.

"No, there were no wolves in my generation. It skipped Harry and me, but my grandfather was a wolf."

"Oh."

"So would you like to see Seth or not?" Billy asked.

"Yes," I replied. Having someone around that I could talk to about all of this would help.

So Billy, Harry, and Sam left and Seth came in. I still had a million questions in my head, which Seth answered for me. I had always liked Seth, but I was dating Jacob, so I had tried to stay away from Jacob's hot gay cousin. But now it seemed I had no choice and I did not even know if Jacob and I were still a thing after this.

I told Seth my concerns, and he assured me that Jacob would come back to me. "I talked to Leah this morning. She said Jacob's really upset with himself right now for how he treated you. He wants to run back here and apologize, but he's still a wolf so he couldn't speak if he tried. Leah keeps pushing him north," Seth told me.

"So he wants to come back to me?" I asked.

"Yeah. Leah said he's very sappy in his love for you, to the point where it makes her want to puke," he replied.

"If he can't speak, then how does Leah know all of this?" I asked confused.

"The wolves can hear each other's thoughts in their wolf form. It helps 'cause none of the wolves can speak, so mind-reading is their only form of communication. But I'm not supposed to be telling you all of this, so don't tell anyone, okay?"

"Why aren't you supposed to tell me?"

"Because no one outside the tribe knows about our wolves. Actually, most people inside the tribe just think they're a bunch of old make-believe legends. But Jacob swears that you're his sole-mate, so I thought I'd help him out by filling you in on the details since he isn't allowed."

"Why isn't he allowed? Once he turns back into a human he can come see me himself, right?"

"Yeah, but Sam's the leader of the pack and ordered Jacob not to spill the beans to anyone, including you. But I'm not in the pack, so I can tell."

"Do you think you'll turn into a wolf too?"

"Nah, they already have three and there's only one cold-one out there to fight."

"A cold-one? What's that? Billy said there was no danger."

"Well we're not supposed to tell the white man, but there's another type of mythological creature out there, that we call the cold ones. We're ancient enemies and whenever they come around, we turn into wolves to fight them off. But one lone female who ran off already without hurting anyone doesn't deserve even three wolves."

"If she ran off without hurting anyone maybe she isn't bad."

"They're all bad, even the ones who don't hurt people; that's why were're ancient enemies. But this one keeps coming back a couple times a year to check on someone: we think she found a mate in the area."

"If she found a mate, why doesn't she take him with her and leave?"

"Dad said something about the boy only being a child. Cold ones and wolves live a lot longer than us, so if they find a mate who is too young, they just wait until he or she grows up," he replied shrugging.

"And the human's fine with the whole thing?" I asked thinking about the species difference between wolves and humans. Was it possible for us to still be together?

"Cold ones turn their mates into cold ones and wolves are fine with the species difference: humans and wolves can have children."

"But that could never be for Jacob and me, because we're both boys."

"Yeah, but if straight wolf-human couples are fine, then you and Jacob can still be together too," he reassured me.

After that, my dad came in and checked all of my vitals. He said that I was fine and good to go home, so he took me home. I spent most of the following week alone, just thinking about Jacob being a wolf, but Seth came to visit me a few more times and let me know how Jacob was doing. He said that Jacob had turned back into a human, but was still too uncontrollable to see me.

I still had the birthday party to deal with the following week, but without Jacob, there was no boyfriend to reveal. And I had too much going on right now with Jacob being a wolf to even think about it, because I did not even know if we were still together.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Carlisle and Esme have to freak out and over react, because they're the parents and all. So between Edward's parents trying to keep him away from Jacob, and Jacob's alpha ordering him away from Edward, their relationship is going to get a lot more difficult.<p> 


	44. Chapter 43

Edward's POV:

I made it through my fifteenth birthday party without breaking down, thanks to my siblings and Seth being there for me. I was still pretty depressed over the whole thing, and the guests seemed to notice. I did not want the other kids to know what had happened or that I had been in the hospital, and luckily Seth had my back.

When the other kids asked what was wrong with me, Seth replied, "You know those giant wolves that people keep seeing? Well one came out of the forest and attacked Edward! It's a good thing Emmett and Russell came out and sprayed it with a hose, or he probably would've been a goner!" Recently several hikers in the area had reported seeing large wolves and Seth used these rumors to explain my run-in with a wolf. And who knows, maybe it was Sam and Leah the hikers had seen.

Emmett and Russell caught on to the story quickly and immediately confirmed Seth's tale. Then they each went on to add a ton of embellishment and made the whole thing sound completely ridiculous. By the time the party was over, the wolf was twenty feet tall and was about to rip me to shreds before I was saved by my brothers and their super-hose.

So I made it through the party, but the next day I had several surprise visitors: our cousins from Alaska came down. My father had four cousins from Alaska, who I thought were really creepy. Plus two of them were married, so that meant six relatives. Cousin Tanya had not always been married, but we introduced her to William, Alice's old nurse from the mental institution, and just as Alice had predicted, the two fell in love. They got married not long after that, and William has been with her in Alaska ever since.

Our Alaskan cousins only tended to visit about once a year and we had just seen them for Christmas, so we really were not expecting the visit. But when they called yesterday to wish me a happy birthday, Dad let it slip that I was upset over a giant wolf attack, and they said they were on their way. Dad tried to tell them that there was no need, but our cousins had insisted and booked the next flight down.

So it seemed that I was stuck with a visit from the relatives for my birthday. Great. Do not get me wrong, our cousins give great presents, but they were weird and gave me the creeps. When Jasper met them, they freaked him out so much that he ran away into the forest and swore it was this psychopath from his hometown back in Texas. I met said psychopath once, and when she lifted me up into the air with one hand to smell me, I nearly peed my pants. Fine, I did pee my pants, but just a little and Jasper never told anyone. That lady was scary!

So dad had taken the SUV to the airport to pick up the relatives and we all waited in the living room for their return. When they arrived, they greeted us with lots of hugs and asked us about how we were doing. But their gifts had already arrived in the mail two days ago, so there were no new presents to open.

After about ten minutes, Cousin Eleazar turned to my dad and said, "We came because of the giant wolves: the Quileute teenagers keep them as pets, but they're a menace. Back when our ancestors first built this house, they had a lot of problems with the wolves wandering in and causing trouble. This was back in the eighteen hundreds, so our family signed a treaty with the tribe to guarantee that they would keep their wolves off of our land. If their wolf strayed into your yard, then I, as the eldest member of the family, have to go talk to them. Who is their Chief now?"

"I don't think they have a Chief, but it was Billy Black's son who had the wolf," Dad replied.

"Well give Mr. Black a call for me and ask to set up a meeting right away," Eleazar replied.

Dad called Mr. Black, and the Quileutes must be taking this treaty thing with our family very seriously, because Billy, Harry, Sam, Leah, and another old guy all agreed to come over right away. When they got here, they all went out into our yard and stood around in a circle to talk. Eleazar and Billy said that since this was an official tribal council meeting, my family could not attend. Only our elders, who were ruled to be our six cousins and our witness, me, were allowed to attend. Everyone else had to wait inside the house for the verdict.

The strange old man introduced himself as Quil Ateara and together with Billy and Harry, they made up the Quileute tribal council. Sam and Leah were there as their warriors. It was a little hard to follow at first, but once the introductions were done they asked me to stand up and tell them what had happened with Jacob.

As soon as I was done, Eleazar stood on behalf of our family and spoke, "Allowing your son to come onto our land and date my great grandson was an egregious violation of our treaty! He could have been killed and he's just a boy!"

"There are only four gay boys their age in the area, and two of them are in our tribe and are related. Therefore it was bound to happen that one of our boys would date your Edward. Furthermore, Jacob was friends with Edward _before_ he was adopted into your family, so we propose that you're in violation for letting one of your relatives adopt the best friend of my son," Billy countered.

"You should have brought that up when we came down here for the adoption," Eleazar replied.

"Well no harm was done, so let's leave it be. We promise to keep Jacob away until he's able to control his wolf and only let him back here if young Mr. Cullen requests it," Billy replied.

"Why are you keeping wolves again anyway? We moved to Alaska just so that you could stop and you promised me when I gave this house to my grandson that you had no wolves," Eleazar snarled.

"It started a few years ago when a lone female wandered into town. She didn't hurt anyone and left before we could question her. She's been returning twice a year ever since and from what we can ascertain, she comes to check on your Jasper. We think she's his mate. Anyway, the second time she came into town, Sam changed.

"Sam was enough for the one female and she never touched a human, but two years ago three nomads of your kind wondered into town. They picked off a few humans and left without causing a stir, but Leah changed while they were here. Then last week, the lone female was back and outside your house while Jacob was inside the garage with Edward. Her presence made him change," Billy finished.

"Are you sure this lone female has been watching our family, and specifically Jasper?" Eleazar asked. "Jasper's already found his mate."

"Yes. We've been watching her and it's always Jasper she watches," Sam answered. "She's checked on him while at school, the hospital, and various other places around town. She never goes to him to speak or lets him see her, so we think she's just watching to make sure he's still okay. She's a short dark haired Hispanic female of your kind."

"Maria," I replied, speaking out of turn.

"You know this one Edward?" Eleazar asked me.

"Yeah, she looks kind of like you guys, but scarier. Jasper met her in Texas and I saw her once when we went to Texas to meet Jasper's family. But Dad doesn't like her and told her to stay away from us or something," I answered.

"Well it would seem that we require young Jasper's presence. Go into the house and retrieve him for us Edward," Eleazar replied.

I nodded and went back inside. "They want to talk to Jasper," I announced going to my brother.

"I guess," Jasper said putting down his book and following me outside.

The Quileutes and our cousins proceeded to ask Jasper a number of questions about Maria, starting with, "When was the last time you saw Maria?"

"Maria came to me outside at my Cousin Hank's ranch. It was my first trip back to Texas after I accidentally killed that man in the bathroom. I had to tell Carlisle everything about her then, but he didn't believe me anyway. But Carlisle did say that he didn't want me near Maria again, and that's why we weren't going to my grandparent's house anymore. Ever since then, we only go to Hank's and Peter and my grandparents come to visit us there. Maria said she'd honor my uncle's request but that she was still gonna come find me when I got older," Jasper answered.

The adults from both sides asked several follow-up questions, but Jasper just kept replying, "She told me not to tell and I can't answer that in front of Edward." So after that, I got sent back into the house so that the adults could talk to Jasper alone. They were at it a long time, but eventually they sent Jasper back into the house and had a discussion without him.

"What happened Jasper?" my dad asked when he re-entered the house.

"Nothing. They just wanted to know about Maria from back home. The Quileutes said that they saw her in the area or something. I didn't know anything, so I just told them the same thing I told you when you asked about Maria," Jasper replied. That seemed to be good enough for my dad, who nodded and we all went back to waiting.

Just when the sun was setting and we were wondering if they were going to continue through the night, Kate came to the door and said that we could all come out now. As soon as we were all gathered on the lawn, Billy made an announcement. "Our treaty stands firm. We Quileutes agree that we'll keep our wolves off of Cullen property and away from the Cullens whenever possible. However, we'll continue to protect the people from any dangers in the area, and if those dangers are on Cullen property, then and only then, will we return," Billy said in his grand voice.

"Edward, we would wish that you do not date amongst the Quileutes. But if you must, you will have to wait until Jacob finishes his anger management classes and is deemed safe by Sam, head of the wolf tamers. If you wish to see them, you must go onto their land, so that you do not put your siblings in danger with their wolves. This rules goes for all members of their tribe, even those without wolves," Cousin Eleazar announced, finishing their joint verdict.

After that there was some formal treaty stuff, where we were all required to sign that we had witnessed it and would abide by it. Then the Quileutes left and our cousins said they wanted to check the forest for stray wolves. Kate stayed with us, but the other five went off until morning.

When they came back, they pulled Jasper and me aside and said that Maria's scent had ended at the airport, so she had already left the area. We were given instructions to call them if she ever returned, but until then, they were done here. Jasper asked them if they were going to track her down in Texas, but Eleazar answered, "No. That is her territory and she has every right to be there. It's only when she comes here when we're allowed to fight her off. But I will tell Carlisle that he's not to take your family to Texas again."

After that Cousin Eleazar and my dad went to talk for a while before Dad dropped them off at the airport. When he came back home, Dad had an announcement, "It seems that this all started because of someone Jasper knew back in Texas. Therefore we won't be going back to Texas again. Jasper's biological brother and grandparents can visit him here twice a year."

We were all kind of bummed, because our yearly summer vacation to the ranch in Texas was one of our favorites, but everyone agreed that it was necessary to keep the peace with the wolf breeding Quileutes, so we all went along with it. Although, something did not quite add up and I really had no idea what was going on. Did this mean that Maria and our cousins were the cold ones Seth had spoken of? They were different enough, but were they really some sort of mythological creature? And they had referred to the Quileutes as wolf-tamers, but never acknowledged that it was the Quileutes themselves who were the wolves, despite the fact that I had told them so during the treaty meeting. Did they still not know or were they just lying to my dad?

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Jacob is going to imprint very soon…<p> 


	45. Chapter 44

Edward's POV:

The next day when Seth called and asked me to come over, I assumed it was because he wanted to talk about the new Quileute peace treaty. And since the rule was that Quileutes were not allowed on Cullen property, I would have to go see him, so I got a ride over the Clearwater's place down in La Push. But when I got there, Seth had big news for me.

"Listen Edward, I saw Jacob: he's human again," he revealed.

"He's human! Then I can go talk to him!" I exclaimed thinking that we really needed to talk.

"He told me that he's been human for a few days actually, but Sam ordered him to stay away from people and Leah lied to me until I saw him yesterday. Jacob said that Sam specifically ordered him to stay away from you."

"But I want to talk to him."

"He wants to talk to you to. He gave me a message to relay to you."

"What is it?" I asked eagerly.

"He said that he wants you to move on," Seth replied solemnly.

"Move on? I don't understand! He'll be normal again in a year or two and then we can be together again."

"Edward, Jacob imprinted."

"What's that?" I asked confused.

"Well when we turn into wolves, there're a lot of other things that go with it, like other pieces of magic. One of them is love at first sight, or imprinting."

"He fell in love? With someone else?" I asked beginning to hyperventilate. This could not be happening to me. "How could he do this to me?"

"Calm down. It'll be okay," he soothed me.

"Okay? How can it ever be okay again?" I asked sobbing.

Seth held me and waited for me to calm down before proceeding. "He can't control it. It's like his free will's taken away and he doesn't get to choose who he loves. He told me that he'd much rather love you. I saw him with his imprint yesterday."

"Who is it?" I asked as my head spun.

"Our second cousin Quil. It's pretty messed up, huh?"

"A girl?" I asked repulsed.

"No, Quil's a boy. But he's related to us, which is kinda gross."

"Wait, I thought there were only two gays on the reservation."

"Two our age. When I said Quil's a boy, I meant that literally. He's only twelve. He's so young that he isn't even sure if he's gay yet. No one even wanted to tell him that a boy imprinted on him."

"Jacob's boning a twelve year old?" I asked incredulously. "That can't be legal: he's almost sixteen!"

"It's not sexual. Jacob was following a twelve year old around like a lost puppy and acting like a cool big brother to the kid. Only he's not allowed to get close to people yet, so he was keeping his distance. He doesn't wanna hurt the boy like he hurt you."

"Well not yet. But soon they'll be sleeping together."

"Not until Quil grows up. It's one of the rules of imprinting: if you fall in love with a kid, it's not sexual until he or she is like fifteen or something."

"That reminds me of something Billy and your dad said yesterday: there's a cold one who wants my little brother Jasper for her mate," I replied thinking about what I had overheard.

"She's after Jasper?" he asked incredulously. "Dude, that sucks…Poor Alice."

"What do you mean poor Alice? Jasper has a choice in the matter and he's choosing Alice," I replied indignantly. Jasper had not imprinted and there was no way he would ever leave Alice like Jacob left me.

"Jasper has a choice in who he loves, but if a cold-woman kidnaps him and takes him away, then there's nothing he can do and he'll never see Alice again," Seth explained.

"Is that why your wolves're watching out for the cold-woman? To make sure she doesn't take Jasper away?"

"Yeah. I don't really know much about them, but it must be like imprinting if she's chosen a child."

"How do you know all of this stuff about imprinting? Does it happen a lot around here?"

"Well Sam imprinted on our cousin Emily. Really upset Leah," he replied sadly.

"Why did it upset Leah?" I wondered.

"Sam and Leah had been dating for years. They had plans to get married after they finished high school and everything. But then Sam turned…"

"And left Leah for Emily, just like that?"

"Well, no. He stayed with Leah for a while. It was not until he saw Emily for the first time after he turned that he imprinted. It's love at first sight, so you have to see your true-love. And it happens the first time you find him or her."

"So then Sam broke up with Leah?"

"He didn't want to, but in the end, he had no choice. Leah tried to stay away from the happy couple, but then she turned herself. It's a strange twist of fate that neither would imprint on the other but that they would both turn."

"Why's that? Just because they're both wolves doesn't make them any more compatible, does it?"

"No. But it's unheard of for a female to turn. It just seems weird that both members of a couple would turn and then both imprint on other people," he answered shrugging.

"Who did Leah imprint on then?"

"Embry Call. He's a kid our age, but a year older. Once Leah imprinted, she forgave Sam and they've been working together ever since."

"What about the imprintee? Did he have a choice? What if they don't want to be with the person who imprinted on them?"

"They've got a choice. But imprints are always such perfect matches for each other that the imprintee always wants to be with the person who imprinted on him. That was the way it was with Embry and Emily at least…"

"What about Quil?"

"That's a good question. He's only twelve and might not even be gay. If he's straight, then it'll probably break Jacob's heart. But Jacob's stuck, because you only get one imprint and it hurts to be separated from your imprint."

"Have two wolves ever imprinted on each other, or only on humans?" I asked wondering if this might be why Leah and Sam could not be together: maybe wolves could not imprint on other wolves.

"Female wolves were unheard of and gay wolves are rare, but there's a legend that it happened once a very long time ago. The legend said that the couple couldn't have children, but instead would vomit up these stones. And the stones would turn into horrible blood-sucking monsters. Real evil creatures or something like that and slaughtered the whole tribe. Only, if they slaughtered the whole tribe, why're we all still here?"

"That's awful."

"Yeah, but like all evil creatures all you had to do to kill these stones was to douse them with water. You know, the whole water making witches melt thing. I'm sure it's all made up, because how can stones suck your blood? Not all of our superstitions are true. We also think that we're descended from ghost warriors."

"Wow, really?"

"It's just a story Edward. But tell me: are you gonna be okay with Jacob imprinting?" he asked me seriously.

"I don't know. I haven't really thought about it. If it's not sexual yet, then-"

"Don't even go there Edward," Seth cut me off. "Thinking like that's just gonna hurt you more in the long run. Jacob said that he wants you to find someone else and be happy."

"But how can I find someone else in this little town? There're only three guys to choose from, and I already dated two of them…" I trailed off thinking about the third gay person my age I knew, who was right in front of me.

"Yeah, I know. It's just so hard to find a boyfriend around here. That's why I tried so hard with your brother Emmett, but I was just too gay to get into it. He's really cute and smart and funny…" Seth trailed off, apparently thinking about my brother. Ew.

"Emmett's with Russell now," I reminded him. Even though those two were always fighting about sex, or lack thereof, they were perfect for each other and were happy together.

"I have an idea!" Seth exclaimed. "Let's get Emmett to drive us down to Port Angeles to visit a gay bar! I bet there're lots of gays up there."

That idea had never occurred to me, so I paused to think about it for a moment. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded. Why did my true love have to be stuck in this tiny town anyway? The only gay left around here was Seth, and I was more interested in him as a friend, especially because I did not want to date the cousin of my ex. So why not go find someone else in the city?

"You'll go with me and help me find someone?" I asked.

"Yep. We can be like clubbing buddies or something: we each make sure the other's safe and gets back home alive."

"That doesn't sound too appealing," I admitted.

"Well we'll have Emmett with us too. Emmett'll be able to protect us."

"That's if we can convince him to go with us. He's glued to Russell's hip these days, so unless Russell approves, it won't fly."

"Then we ask Russell to go with us! They're both gay: I bet they'll like going to a gay club and dancing together! It doesn't hurt to ask, does it? Please Edward: I really wanna go," he pleaded.

"Fine. I'll ask them to go with us," I conceded.

"Yes! Maybe now I'll find someone I can lose my virginity with!" he exclaimed. Poor guy was fifteen and still a virgin. Well I guess that was better than Emmett who was sixteen and still a virgin.

When I went back home that night, I asked Russell and Emmett to take Seth and me to a gay club. At first they refused, but once I mentioned that it would be a place that they could dance together and not get looked at funny, they conceded. There was just one problem. "You, Seth, and Russell are still fifteen and the club has a sixteen year-old age limit. Just how do you all expect to get in?" Emmett asked.

"You owe me," Alice sang coming into the room and handing Emmett a set of cards.

"What're these Alice?" he asked surprised.

"Fake IDs. Now you're all eighteen for the night. And like all fairy god-mothers, I want them back by midnight or I'll turn y'all into a bunch of flaming pumpkins."

"Look who's talking. I believe there're two dicks in your and Jasper's bed, same as the rest of us," I replied teasing.

"Exactly, which makes me the queen fairy and you're just my little pixie, Tink," Alice retorted.

"Wait, Alice made all four of us fake IDs?" Russell asked flabbergasted. "Alice! We can't use these. It's wrong!"

"Why? It's just dancing. But if you don't want to go, I'll just take yours back," Alice said pulling one of the cards back.

"Oh never mind, I'll take it," Russell said reaching for his card. "But you two gay-birds better behave or I'm telling Mom."

"Whatever Russell. We all know you like dick just as much as the rest of us. I bet Emmett has some really good dick," Alice teased and Emmett's ears turned red.

"Alice!" Emmett hissed.

"I love you too Emmett. Just make sure that Seth and Edward don't drink and stay away from a guy named Raoul and everything'll be fine," Alice said before skipping off to her room. Then she peeked her head out of her door and added, "And I want those cards back as soon as you're done!"

So the next Friday night, the four of us with the fake IDs from Alice, drove out to Port Angeles. Emmett having his license and being able to drive was actually working out pretty well for me. Seth and I danced the first song together, but separated so that we were not touching, before some older boys came over and cut in. We each had a great time dancing with other boys, and Seth even got some guy named Riley's phone number. But I did not find anyone I liked, because the whole time, I just kept thinking about Jacob.

Emmett and Russell found Seth and me around midnight and said that it was time to head home. So we piled in the car, and on the long drive home, Seth found out that I had not gotten any phone numbers.

"Why not dude? There were tons of hot young guys there!" he exclaimed as if I had just admitted to killing baby kittens for pleasure.

"I don't know. It's just that none of them seemed right, I guess," I replied sheepishly.

"What about that blond dude that was grinding all over you! If I had known you hadn't gotten his number I would've!"

"What about Riley?"

"Getting two numbers doesn't hurt. In fact, I also got numbers from Jon, Fred, and Jeremy, but I'll only call them if Riley doesn't work out," Seth answered.

"Woo! Way to go Seth!" Emmett exclaimed from the driver's seat.

"Whatever. I just wasn't ready," I admitted.

"Don't tell me that you're still hung up on Jacob?" Seth asked incredulously.

"It's only been two weeks," I defended myself.

"With the way he treated you, you should _not_ want him back," he replied.

"What do you mean? I thought it was just the wolf taking over?" I asked confused.

"Part of it was the wolf, but most of it was just Jacob being a jerk! I can't believe you stayed with that ass for two years."

"But we loved each other," I defended.

"Yeah, but you let him walk all over you dude."

"He's right," Emmett added from the front. At this point I wondered why Emmett was doing all of the butting in, because Russell always makes sure to do his share. And when I looked at Russell, I found my answer: he was asleep. "Jacob raped you Edward! You need to get over that loser."

"It wasn't rape," I defended my ex. "It was just a minor sexual assault." That was my new mantra, because no one believed me.

"Dude, I'm his cousin and I've got inside info from Leah. She said that he admitted to her that he rape you, only he said it was an accident, as if there's such thing as accidental rape," he replied.

"Why'd he admit to something he didn't do?" I asked surprised and confused.

"He wouldn't; this proves he did it," Emmett replied.

"Or maybe he's sick of everyone saying he did and he finally admitted to get you all to shut up! Or worse, maybe he was so confused over turning into a wolf that he doesn't know what he did and enough people said he raped me that he started believing them," I said.

"Leah said Uncle Billy showed him the pictures of you in the hospital and he admitted it and they didn't pressure him or nothing," Seth replied.

"Well I don't care what he said, because I know I wasn't raped," I insisted.

"That was rape Edward. And you never should've let him hit you when you didn't like it," Seth replied.

"I asked him to stop."

"Yeah, well Charlie went ahead and filed rape and sexual assault charges on Jacob on Wednesday when he finally showed himself down at the station. Charlie's the one who gave Uncle Billy the pictures," Seth said.

"What? No one told me this! And I said that I didn't want to press charges."

"Well apparently it's no longer up to you. My mom said that the government got tired of rape victims refusing to file charges so now the State files them without you. I know because I had to listen to a very boring council meeting about it."

"They had a council meeting just for that?" Emmett asked.

"Yep. It was a big deal because Jacob was next in line to be Chief, but now he has to take care of these charges before he can be Chief."

"He never told me he's gonna be Chief!" I exclaimed. How much more was there that Jacob never told me?

"He doesn't want to be, but even so there're certain expectations placed on him because he's Billy's only son, just like there are on me."

"On you? Like what?"

"I'm Harry's only son, so I'll get his place on the council of elders when he dies. That's why I have to sit in on all of the council meetings and I know all this stuff. None of the other Quileute kids know this many of our tribes secrets," Seth answered.

"Well that doesn't sound so bad," I replied.

"It's not. It's just really boring most of the time."

After that Seth and I fell asleep in the car and I did not wake up again until Emmett parked the car in our garage and was telling me to go to bed. Seth was already gone, because Emmett had dropped him off first. Ordinarily my parents would have let him spend the night, but ever since that treaty thing, Seth was not permitted over.

And as soon as we got in the house, Alice was waiting for us with her hand out. We each returned our IDs saying, "Thank you Fairy-God-Mother," before going upstairs to bed. Emmett had Seth's so he returned it as well.

"You're welcome. Just remember who your favorite sister is when I come asking for a favor!" she called after us as we climbed up the stairs.

* * *

><p>Author's note: That favor is going to be a big one once Alice is ready to ask for it. And I know I may have implied that Jacob was going to imprint on Edward but that was never the plan. Edward's story is like that of the three bears: Bobby was too cold, Jacob is too hot, and the next guy will be just right. But before he finds Mr. Right, he needs to find himself and make a few more friends, which is where Seth comes in.<p> 


	46. Chapter 45

Author's note: Warning- there is some lemon juice at the end of this one…

Jasper's POV:

I had been hoping for a trip down to Texas this January to see my brother for my fourteenth birthday, but those plans went out the window when Jacob did his magic trick of turning into a wolf. I had no idea that Edward's love life would affect me so, but after our Alaskan cousins came down to meet with the Quileute elders I did not think my life was ever going to be the same. I had grown up in a world with magic and mythological creatures, just not the kind Aunt Esme thought there should be. To her, magic was wonderful and rainbows, but to me it was bloodshed and tears.

As far back as I could remember there were vampires in my life; or more specifically, Maria. I knew Maria was not human and that I had to hide this from the other humans; she had told me as much. I was not even sure why I did it, because I did not feel any particular loyalty towards her. Maria was someone who had influenced my younger years greatly and who had even tried to save my father after his suicide. She had gone so far as to help me call for an ambulance, but she had not succeeded and my father was dead. She had taught me a lot, like how to wrestle and defend myself, but she always wanted something from me in return.

One of my earliest memories was of Maria telling me that she wanted me for her army because I was special. I learned early on that my emotions leak onto others and that I had to control them. I almost had to be unemotional to prevent others from noticing my particular gift, or curse, depending on how one looked at it. It was a bit of a paradox that feeling emotions more strongly would lead me to feel them less, and Maria even helped me with learning to control these emotions of mine.

But then my parents had died and contact with Maria had been all but severed. She told me to go with my aunt and that she would find me when I grew up; that we would still be together. I looked up to her as an infinitely smarter and stronger creature than myself. I even wanted to join her, because the stories she told of her conquests in The South were thrilling. I wanted to be Major Jasper Whitlock, commander of a squadron of newborn vampire soldiers, so I kept quiet and went along with her plans.

But then I had met Alice and found a new type of magic in this world: a little bit of human magic. In Alice I had found my sole-mate and the love of my life, as well as another person with a gift. But Alice's gift was harder to hide than my own, because the future was not something she could pretend not to know and Alice seemed to live more in the future than in the present.

So our family knew about Alice's gift, but we made an effort to keep it to ourselves. Our cousins in Alaska knew, as well as my brother Peter, but the other relatives in Texas did not. Edward had told his ex-boyfriend Jacob and his friend Seth, and Russell had told his ex-girlfriend Bella, but that was it. Not even my best friend Henry knew about Alice, because unlike Edward and Russell, I could keep a secret. The kids at school thought that she was weird, but then she really was not friends with any of them, so no one had gotten close enough to figure her out.

But it was not Alice's ability that made me love her, but the way I felt whenever I was with her. I could literally taste the hope seeping from her pores. She left a residue of happiness behind her everywhere she went. Her emotions were just so pure and wonderful that I was drawn to her, like a moth to a flame. Alice was my world and my everything and I would do anything for her.

But how Maria fit in with my life with Alice, I did not know. Maria was the exciting life I had wanted as a child, while Alice was the hope for a normal life I had come to desire as a teenager. Maria was my past and Alice was my present and future. If only my past would just stay put in the past.

But when Jacob turned into a wolf, revealing a third type of magic to me, my past came colliding in to meet my future. Jacob had turned because Maria had been in the forest outside our house checking on me, watching me, waiting for me. Jacob was descended from a tribe of werewolves, the arch enemy of the vampire, and just being so close to Maria had triggered the transformation process. It was a little ironic that Edward had been dating a werewolf while I was destined to be a vampire, but I guess that is the story of my life.

Jacob's attack on Edward had been the catalyst for a meeting between the Quileutes and our Alaskan cousins. I had known that Carlisle's cousins were vampires the first time I saw them get out of Carlisle's car outside our house that first Easter our family spent together. I had been concerned that these new vampires might have been sent by Maria and I was scared for myself and my new brother, because Edward had never met Maria before and I did not know how these new vampires would react to him or me. I was fairly certain that if they were with Maria then they would not harm me, but would they harm him? Carlisle seemed to think they were okay, but my first instinct had been to run, because Maria had taught me to run.

I had no chance of ever being able to fight off a vampire, so my wrestling skills were no good. And although I could not hope to out run a vampire, Maria had told me that they were not allowed to use their full speed and strength in front of humans. Maria had said that if I ever met a vampire other than her, I should run into a crowd of humans and scream for help. There was no crowd to run into, but there was a forest, so I ran and thought later.

But Carlisle had found Edward and me and insisted that it was alright. I tried to explain to him that there was something off about his relatives, without giving away Maria's secrets, but eventually I was left with no choice but to trust my uncle and return to meet these new vampires. These vampires never once mentioned Maria, but were friendly and did not hurt us. They seemed to have claimed Carlisle in the same way that Maria had claimed me; only they had no need to turn him into one of their own. In fact, the Alaskan vampires seemed to prefer that we be left human as interesting pets of some sort. And like all pet owners, they came running to defend us when there was trouble.

I was not too surprised that the Alaskan vampires had shown up to deal with our werewolf problem. After all, werewolves are not exactly conducive to growing healthy pet humans. What did surprise me was that Maria had been in the area and had been watching me. The last time I had seen Maria was on my cousin Hank's ranch in Texas.

I had been forced to reveal everything I knew about Maria to Carlisle after the incident with Russell in the bathroom. I had saved my brother and taken a life and was very proud of myself. Maria would have been very pleased, but Carlisle and Esme were not. They wanted to know how I had learned to kill with my bare hands and I had eventually been left with no other options than to tell my uncle the truth about Maria.

So Carlisle forbade me from seeing Maria again and I had passed along the message, hoping to not start a war between the two parties. Maria had seemed fine with Carlisle's verdict, even going so far as to say, "He's your father-figure now young Jasper. I'm counting on that man to love you and take care of you so that you'll grow up strong and healthy for me. I'll leave you be, as he wishes, but I'll be back for you one day. But tell me more about these Alaskan vampires you mentioned."

Maria had been very curious about the Alaskans who seemed to be keeping Carlisle as a pet, but had failed to turn him. After telling her everything I knew on the subject, Maria finally replied, "Well I don't know these vampires or what they want with your family. Perhaps it's just that they've grown bored with their lot and have decided to keep your family as pets for entertainment. They won't hurt you, but will watch out for you and protect you: this is a good thing my sweet. But they don't know of me and I don't wish to start a fight over your family, so I'll back off and let them keep you, for now. Just make sure to never mention me or there'll be trouble."

Initially, I had complied with Maria's request to not tell the Alaskans about her. But when surrounded by six vampires and two werewolves in the midst of renegotiating a treaty, there was nothing I could do but to tell the truth. I no longer even wanted Maria to come for me: I wanted to stay with Alice and be human. So I told all I knew about my vampire stalker, hoping that the Alaskans and Quileutes would be able to protect me.

The Alaskans promised to come back to protect our family if Maria was ever in the area for a prolonged period, but they thought it would be best if they kept their distance and let the werewolves deal with the problem. There were now three werewolves, which were more than enough to deal with one lone vampire and her obsession with me. So I decided that Alice and I were safe enough and resolved to continue on with my life as if nothing had happened.

But nothing had not happened. Not only was I not going to Texas for my birthday, but Maria was still checking on me every six months or so. Maria had stopped by to check on me in November, but the wolves had chased her off. My life continued as usual, but for a few days Leah stuck to Alice and me like glue, just in case my vampire came back.

The invasion into my life caused by having Leah around was minimal, but not being able to see my brother Peter in Texas was a major concern for me. Luckily, Esme worked everything out with my grandparents, so that Peter was able to fly in for the week of my birthday. It was a school week, but Peter had gotten some homework from his teachers and was free to spend six entire days with me.

Peter and I had a great time and I had really been missing him, especially after our trip to Texas in early August had been canceled thanks to Maria. I knew that I should not tell Peter about what was going on up here with the Alaskan vampires and the werewolves, but I just had to know what was up with Maria. "Have you seen Maria lately Peter?" I asked him once we were alone.

"Yeah. She only stops by twice a year now, so it's not like before when you lived with me. She said she still wants me for her army and she wants my girlfriend Charlotte too. But she said that she isn't gonna take any of us until you're old enough," he replied. Peter was Seventeen and a half, in his senior year of high school, and had been dating some chick name Charlotte for years now.

"She wants Charlotte too?" I asked incredulously. I had never considered the possibility that she wanted anyone other than Peter and me.

"And Alice. She was practically drooling when she told me about your Alice. She said that she always knew that you were special, but never dreamed that you'd find her someone even more made to be a vampire."

"But I thought she wanted to marry me?" I asked confused.

"Nope, she said that it's fine if I marry Charlotte and you marry Alice: in fact, she said that our marriages will fit into her plans perfectly. We'll be a coven of six ruling all of Texas and Mexico."

"Who's the sixth one?"

"Maria's husband. Did you know that she's been married for hundreds of years and never told us?"

"No…I distinctly remember her saying that she wanted us to marry her," I answered.

"She said that's just how she talks sometimes. What she meant was that she wanted us to join her coven. Do you still want to join?" he asked me.

"I don't know…I don't if it means leaving Alice. But if I get to keep Alice, then I just don't know. I'll have to think about it."

"So you're really crazy about her then?" he asked and I nodded. "Tell me little bro, have you rounded home plate yet?"

"No! I'm only just turning fourteen tomorrow."

"You asked Charlotte about me and her when I was only twelve, remember?" he reminded me. "It's only fair that you spill the beans. Tell me about what you do with Alice, little brother."

I blushed, but conceded that it was only fair after he had been my source of advice in the sex department for years now. "Last night, Alice and I exchanged blowjobs," I admitted blushing.

"You mean you ate her out?"

"No, I gave her a blowjob. We're both intersexed, remember?"

"Oh yeah. What's it like having her dick in your mouth?"

"I like it. I don't know if that makes my gay or bi or something just because I like the taste of Alice's big cock, but I do," I admitted blushing again.

"Is she really big? Who has the bigger cock?"

"I do; mine's a couple inches bigger. But Alice was originally born with a micropenis, so the fact that she has five and a half inches and is a normal width is considered really huge."

"If she had a micropenis, how come she's normal sized now?"

"Uncle Carlisle gave her a bunch of hormone shots. He's still giving her the injections and they make her penis grow. And she's still growing, because she's only thirteen Peter."

"Don't the male hormones make her look like a man?"

"No. They made her get really hairy back when we were like eleven, but Esme took her into a clinic and had all of the hair lasered off," I revealed.

"So which way's sex gonna go when you finally get to that point?"

"Both. She wants to do it both ways and she says that I'll like both ways."

"So you're really okay with the whole vagina thing, then?" he asked me seriously. My family had told him about my depression when I had not been able to visit him the summer before last, because I was too upset about my pussy to make it to Texas. If I had known then that that would be my last chance to go…

"Well I wasn't for a long time. But now, I'm starting to like it. You wouldn't believe what Alice can do to it with her fingers; that combined with a blowjob is just mind-blowing," I answered truthfully.

"Well as long as you're happy little bro," he replied ruffling my already messy curly hair.

"I am," I replied smiling up at my brother. "What about you? Are you happy with Charlotte?"

"Yeah, I am. We're gonna get married in a few years and next year we're both planning on going to The University of Texas, San Antonio."

After that, Peter went to sleep on the pull-out bed in my room and I snuck down to Alice's room to talk to her. "Did you see what Peter told me?" I asked her as I crawled into her bed, pulling her covers up around me to preserve the heat. The house was heated, but it was a very chilly winter this year, so I was cold just from walking down the stairs.

"Yes," she replied snuggling into me.

"Why aren't you wearing any pajamas?" I asked hugging her naked body to my pajama clad body. Well I was not wearing a shirt, so I was half naked, but still, I was wearing a lot more clothing than my love.

"I saw you coming," she replied reaching up to my lips for a kiss.

"You know we're only allowed to play around in the garage," I replied after breaking the kiss.

"I'm a bad girl: you'll have to punish me," she teased. "Besides, I can see the future and I can see that I'll get a blowjob without being caught tonight. I can be quiet."

"Okay, but what did you think about what Peter said about Maria?" I asked changing the subject.

"Jasper, I've seen you as long as I can remember. I saw that we'd be together as humans and then as vampires. There's no ambiguity in our fate; only how we get there. I could've come to you later or not until we were both turned, but together forever as blood suckers for all of eternity has never wavered," she revealed and I tried to remember how to close my mouth in my shocked state. I knew that Alice knew more details of our future than she had told me, but I had not been expecting this.

"So we go with Maria together?" I finally managed to ask.

"In one future yes, but that'll be a horrible life full of fighting, bloodshed, and war. You won't like it and it'll be extremely hard on you with your gift. Peter, Charlotte, and I will be fine, but you won't be happy there."

"Then how'll we become vampires?"

"William promised me he would change me when I grow up. He raised me for four years in that institution and I feel like he was by biological father, not Mr. Brandon. I trust him with our lives Jazz, and I can see that he'll change you too," she revealed.

"Where will we go? To Alaska with the others?" I asked beginning to consider this possible future.

"Maybe for a time. But our whole family'll be changed eventually, including Mom and Dad, so we'll stay with them as a new coven of seven. How and when it happens varies, but one thing that's set is that it'll happen. Just like when Emmett would be attacked by the bear changed, but it was set in stone that he'd be attacked and join our family, because he's meant to be Russell's partner forever."

"So you knew all along that Russell and Emmett would be together?"

"Yes, but I couldn't tell them that or it'd never happen: Russell's just a tad bit stubborn if you haven't noticed."

"He's not the only one," I accused and she reached up and pinched my nipple until I gave in. "Fine, he's the only one, just let go!"

"You know I wouldn't have to pinch so hard if you'd just get them pierced already…" she said trailing off probably in a vision of me with pierced nipples. She had been telling me for months that she could see me with them.

"How does me having pierced nipples relate to me being a vampire?" I asked trying to stump her. Vampires did not have piercings.

"Jazz, we've got eternity to be vampires together; what we need to concentrate on now's the few years we have left to be humans together. We might as well make the most of it, because we'll never get to be human again," she answered reaching her hand down to palm my erection through my pants.

"What do you have in mind?" I asked as I reached out to fondle her breasts. Alice did not have huge knockers, but her B-cups were bigger than Russell's.

"This," she said taking off my pants and boxers and throwing them on the floor.

Alice then climbed on top of my body, taking her hard cock in her right hand and stroking it a few times. I watched her as she reached below her cock, to pick up the few drops of precum that were dripping from her urethra, which she spread around her head after pulling back her foreskin.

Alice saw me watching her touch herself and asked, "Do you want to taste my big cock Jazz?"

I nodded and Alice scooted forwards so that I could reach her penis with my mouth. Alice's penis looked normal, except for the white indent in the middle of the head, where her urethra should have been. But thanks to the sever hypospadias, there was no opening at all on her penis. I tongued the little indent, before running my tongue around her ridge, knowing that those were the most sensitive spots.

Alice and I had just started giving each other blowjobs for Christmas this year. We had been fingering each other and exchanging handjobs for a couple months, but before that, we had kept to my aunt and uncles rule of no sexual activity until we were fourteen. We almost made it to their goal, but we were really horny, so we had barely even thought twice about breaking it that November day. Well, we made-out and dry-humped, but that was it.

I lapped and licked at Alice's cock until she was moaning and bucking her hips into my mouth. Then I just relaxed and opened my mouth and let her fuck my mouth. Tasting Alice like this was one of the most erotic things I had ever experienced and I was all too eager to swallow her cum when she whispered, "I'm gonna cum Jazz."

I removed her cock from my mouth and placed my mouth over the hole that was at the top of her balls. Alice's anatomy was atypical, in that her urethra opened up between her vagina and her penis, right at the top of her balls. Her ball sack was split to go around the vagina, but it almost joined at the top on either side of her urethra. So I clamped my mouth shut over the area, feeling a bit of each testicle in my mouth, and waited for Alice to shoot her load into my mouth.

Alice's cum was thick, salty, and a little bitter, and I swallowed it all so that we would not make a mess in her bed. Although, the one time before when we had exchanged handjobs in this bed, Alice had just told my aunt that she had had a wet dream. My aunt was so surprised that Alice was the one having the wet dream, not me, that she did not even notice that Alice had not soiled her panties or pajamas in the process. In fact, when Alice really did have wet dreams, her panties and pajama bottoms caught all of the cum, leaving her in need of a bath, but with a clean set of sheets.

Alice kept quiet through her orgasm, so that no one would hear us. And as soon as she finished, she cuddled back into my arms. But this time she sat on my right leg and pushed on my left knee, encouraging me to open for her. I spread my legs and she wasted no time in reaching down and pushing two fingers into my pussy.

Although I enjoyed stimulation of both my penis and vagina, Alice liked to start with the vagina. She said it was so that I would always have it on my mind how great vaginal stimulation was so that I would never be tempted to cut or remove it again. I still was not sure I was willing to live with it forever, but for now I was content to lie back and enjoy the sensation of Alice fingering me.

Alice started pressing on my G-spot and I started panting, trying not to moan too loudly, for fear of getting caught. And then Alice added her mouth to my head and sucked and licked. She ran her tongue around my ridge and tongued my frenulum a few times, before sucking my entire head into her mouth. After a few more sucks from her warm wet mouth I was silently creaming onto Alice's hand.

Unlike my siblings who all possessed at least one testicle, I had two ovaries and had never produced an ejaculate of any kind. I got hard when I was horny and went soft after I came, but no fluid, not even precum, ever left my cock; besides urine when I peed, that is. Sometimes I thought it was weird how the white fluid shot out of from the top of Alice's balls when she came while I did not make it at all, but then most of the time I did not care, because that was just the way we were. It was okay that we were different from each other, because we were perfect for one another.

Author's Note: Alice and Jasper are growing up…Can you believe they're fourteen already?

Merry Christmas everyone. This year I'm asking for reviews as presents!


	47. Chapter 46

Jasper's POV:

Peter's visit and my birthday went well, but all too soon he had to go back home. I was feeling a little sad now that we were parted again, but Henry was filling the void left by my brother by asking me over to hang out all of the time. Henry and I were still best friends and he always seemed to know when I needed a little extra attention.

Henry was two years older than me, so we were in the same grade, but we did not have a lot in common. I liked to read, especially about history; Henry not so much. Henry loved video games and loud music, while I did not. But Henry had always been there for me and helped me cope with my fear of crowds and strange people. Whenever I was going to freak, he used to grab a ball and take me outside to play: that was the one thing we had in common.

Henry loved to play sports of all kinds and I liked sport too. In fact, I was really good at pretty much every sport I had ever tried. Henry and I would play everything together, from football and basketball, to water polo and wrestling. We were playing ice hockey today. This winter had been unseasonably cold, even for Forks, to the point where a few of the smaller ponds had frozen over. This was a rarity this close to the ocean, so Henry and I decided to make the most of it by playing ice hockey. Henry's property was not as sprawling as our own, but he did have one of these frozen lakes in his back yard.

Emmett and Russell normally come out to play with us, but they were scheduled for time in the garage, because Alice and I had this evening booked. Edward was temporally out of the game, because he still had not found a new boyfriend after Jacob, but he and Seth still liked to book time in the garage together. And since this meant that there were three couples sharing the garage, we were now planning our lives around the garage schedule.

Although they were not dating, my aunt and uncle had added a television and DVD player so that Seth and Edward could watch porn together while they jacked off. Seth had not been allowed over initially after the incident with Jacob, but Seth was sixteen years old and if he was going to shift, he would have done so by now. And since Seth, unlike his sister, was not a werewolf, our Alaskan cousins allowed him back over with Edward's insistence.

While Emmett and Russell were getting their freak on, Edward and Alice were painting. Alice loved art, especially drawing or painting the future. And since no one else in the house was into art, Alice convinced Edward to paint with her. In exchange, She would play the piano with him. He had given up the piano for the two years he was with Jacob, but he had found himself with a lot more time on his hands now that he was single and had taken the piano back up.

So with Russell, Emmett, Edward, and Alice otherwise occupied, it was just Henry and me goofing around on the frozen pond. It was freezing cold, so both Henry and I were bundled up in thick parkas and snow pants. We had been playing for over an hour, and were starting to get tired when it happened: the ice was not as thick as I had thought. And with the way Henry and I had been skating back and forth for the last hour, we had worn a soft spot in a thin patch. I heard a cracking sound right before the ice gave way and I fell through.

It was difficult clawing my way back up through the hole, as I was dressed in snow gear and ice skates, but Henry ran over and started helping me. He got me out, but not before I was drenched through. The last thing I remembered was him throwing my arm over his shoulder, and helping me back towards his house.

The next thing I knew I was waking up naked in his bath tub full of scalding hot water. I was absolutely freezing, so my brain was not working at full capacity and I was a bit out of it.

"Too hot," I muttered as Henry wrung out a washcloth over my head and face, trying to warm me up. That is when I first noticed Henry: he was leaning over the tub by my head, wearing only his boxers and shivering.

"Sorry man, but I need to warm you up. This water isn't hot; it's you that's cold. And you just started shivering again: I was really worried for a while there, because you were so cold that you weren't even shivering. I think you have hypothermia. I turned on the heater, but a warm bath's the quickest way to warm you back up."

Ah, I was shivering. That explains why the room was moving back and forth like that. "Where are your clothes?" I asked lethargically. It seemed odd that he would have removed his clothes if he were that cold.

"Mine got drenched saving and carrying you. I had to throw you onto my back to get you in here after you passed out. Do you have any idea how heavy you are? It's a good thing that Coach trains me so hard for football; otherwise I would never have made it," Henry began.

Henry was on the football team and was always asking Russell, Emmett, and me to try out with him. But with all of us being intersexed, sharing a shower in the boy's locker room after football practice was the last thing we wanted to do. How were we going to hide our three vaginas? So we all pretended that my aunt and uncle would not allow us to try out because it was too dangerous.

"Anyway, I took my clothes off when I was taking yours off," Henry continued. "I was gonna get in there with you and warm up as well, but then I took your boxers off: I didn't think it was proper to share a bath with a girl."

"What?" I asked slowly, not comprehending what he had said, as he continued to pour warm water over my head.

"I took off your clothes Jasper. When I took off your boxers I noticed that you have girl parts. I knew you didn't have balls, but it never occurred to me that you had something else down there instead," he answered. Henry and I had been friends so long that I had admitted to him that I was intersexed after he kept wondering why I always went into the stall to pee. I told him that I had Guevedoche, back when I thought that was what I had, and he had accepted me and my lack of balls, but I had never updated him on the vagina. "You even had your legs open when I put you in the tub. I closed them before you regained consciousness."

I am not sure what happened next, but I must have forgotten to breathe, because next thing I knew I was on the floor next to the bathtub with Henry bent over me giving me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I choked and spluttered on his hot breath.

"Finally! Don't do that to me again! I almost had a heart attack!" Henry exclaimed as I opened my eyes.

He was still bent over my head panting like he had just run the four hundred meter dash, when I realized that my legs were open again. I quickly closed them before he could notice, because although I knew he had already seen, I still did not want him looking.

Henry noticed my movement and said, "You must be freezing. Here, let me help you back into the bath."

I nodded my head slightly and he put me back in the tub of scalding water. Then he grabbed the washcloth, dipped it back into the hot water, and started running it over my now exposed chest. I was sitting up in the water this time, so my upper body was exposed to the chilly air.

"Well, if you can keep from almost dying for five minutes, I'd like to put some clothes on and call your parents: I've been so busy trying to warm you up that I haven't had a chance to let them know what's happening."

I nodded my head again, and took the washcloth from him, to show that I would be fine. He left the room and I could hear him talking on the phone, but I was feeling very sleepy, and sitting up seemed to be taking a lot of effort, so I decided to lie down in the tub.

I must have drifted off, because next thing I knew Henry was over me trying to shake me awake. "Jasper! Not again! You better not have stopped breathing again! I do _not_ want to have to perform CPR again. Once was enough."

"I'm awake. Just stop shaking me," I responded languidly as I opened my eyes. This time Henry was wearing sweatpants, but still no shirt.

"Good. Your uncle was home. He and Alice are on their way over. He said not to call nine-one-one and that he'd take care of you."

I nodded my head and closed my eyes, because it really was taking a copious amount of work on my part to keep them open. "Jasper! Can't you keep your eyes open for thirty seconds?" I shook my head. "Fine, then let's dry you off and get you in my bed," he said before helping me out of the bath and handing me a towel.

I wrapped the towel around my waist, and sat down on the toilet. He grabbed another towel and started drying me off. Once I was dry, he helped me to his room where I flopped down on his bed. He grabbed some of his clothes and helped me get dressed, before helping me get under the covers.

"Um Jasper? Carlisle said to keep you warm using my body heat. Is it okay if I get under the covers with you? I know the heater is on, so the house should warm up soon, but you're still shivering."

"Sure," I said closing my eyes.

When I opened them again, Henry was just getting out of the bed, where he had been spooning me. Ew. "Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster you came so quickly!" Henry and his family were Pastafarian and believed that the world had been created by a Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster. "Alice, can you use your body heat to keep him warm now? That was kinda gross…" he trailed off as Alice ran to me. I looked towards the doorway and saw Carlisle with his doctor's bag.

"Of course," Alice said climbing under the covers with me. She began to spoon me and slipped her warm hand under my sweatshirt to rub my chest. Then she whispered into my ear so softly that only I could hear, "I'm sorry I missed this: I just didn't see it until it was too late."

"Thank you for taking such good care of him Henry. You're a true friend," I heard Carlisle say as I closed my eyes again.

"Are you sure he's okay? He keeps sleeping, and he stopped breathing. I had to give him mouth-to-mouth: that was gross."

"Well, the breathing is a concern. But, I'll check him out and see if he's still hypothermic," Carlisle said and I felt a thermometer press into my ear. He waited for a beep before removing it. "Well, his ears are still cold. Let's try the mouth?" And I felt another thermometer slip under my tongue.

I was too sleepy to move or respond, but I distinctly remember hoping the tongue would be enough for him, and that he would not want a third temperature. I had been raised in a house with a doctor long enough to know where he would go for a third temperature reading. I must have been in for a change of luck, because he pulled the instrument out and declared, "See: he's warming up already!"

"Really, he's gonna be fine?" Henry asked still apprehensive.

"Well, I need to check for signs of frostbite and check his heart rate," Carlisle replied pulling back the covers and slipping his stethoscope under my sweatshirt. The instrument was cold, and he was letting in all the cold air, so with my last little bit of strength I pushed his hand away from me. "Jasper, I need to do this."

"Cold," I murmured.

"Fine, your heart sounds good, although your heartbeat is still slow. I'll just check your pulse from your wrist from now on," he replied pulling my sweatshirt back down. But he did not return the blanket. Instead he started examining my fingers and then my toes. "His hands and feet look good: no signs of frostbite setting in. He'll be fine just as soon as his heart rate picks back up. Then he pulled the covers back over me. But, he did keep my right arm out of the covers and kept two of his fingers pressed to my wrist, obviously checking my pulse.

"Isn't the heart thing bad? Shouldn't we call an ambulance to take him to the hospital!" Henry asked only slightly hysterical.

"No, his heart rate isn't that slow: he'll be fine. It looks like you warmed him up before any real damage was done. Are you okay Henry? You seem really nervous. I know that it can be traumatizing to witness a friend almost die. Maybe you should sit down."

"Yeah, okay," came the reply from Henry. "It's just that I'm still shocked about him being a girl. You know?"

"I'm a boy," I muttered, taking all of my remaining strength to do so.

"Jasper is intersexed. He told you about his Guevedoche," Carlisle replied not understanding what Henry was getting at. Carlisle knew that I had told Henry that I had Guevedoche back when we were kids and he also knew that I had not told anyone about my new diagnosis; I had not even been the one to tell Peter.

"Yeah, I knew he didn't have balls, but I didn't know until I was undressing him that he had a pussy."

"Oh, you saw that, did you?"

"Yeah. I'm just a little weirded out right now."

"Well, some people with Guevedoche can look almost like normal men down there, while others look completely female on the outside. Jasper is in the middle of this spectrum."

"Does that mean that Jasper can't have children?" Henry asked still not realizing the implications of my vagina.

"It's too early to tell; we'll just have to wait until he grows up and see. But just because he has something different on the outside, doesn't change what's on the inside," Carlisle deflected the question. We were pretty sure that Alice and I would be able to have children, just not the conventional way.

"Yeah, I guess," Henry replied.

"Henry, this is very important: no one outside our family knows about the vagina. I would like to ask you to keep this a secret. Can you do that for Jasper?"

"I guess. But wow! I mean, he has kept all of this a secret from everyone for this long? We played football together and everything! He shouldn't have been allowed to play; he could've gotten hurt!"

"Jasper is still the same person he was before and he is still a boy. Genetically he has one X chromosome, and one Y, making him male."

"Yeah, I guess. But I still can't believe it."

"Henry, you need to remember that who Jasper is as a person is not changed or affected by the nature of his genitals. You two were best friends before this. Are you going to let something as insignificant as his genitals get in the way of your friendship?"

"No. He's still my best friend. This doesn't change that."

"Good. Now can you promise him that you won't tell? This is something he doesn't want anyone to know about. Personally, I think of him as my son, and it doesn't matter to me one bit, so I wouldn't be bothered if people found out. But he is worried about being ridiculed by the other kids; they will make fun of him if they find out."

"I guess," Henry muttered.

"I'm still a little weirded out, but I won't tell. Actually, the thought of Alice and Jasper having sex is sort of a turn-on. Does that make me gay?" Henry asked.

"No. I don't think that would count as gay. Well, if you're going to be okay, I would like to get Jasper home now."

"Sure," Henry replied.

"Wake up Jazz, we're going home now," Alice said kissing me softly.

"Still cold," I replied opening my eyes. I do not think I had really been asleep, as I had heard their entire conversion. I was just too bone tired to move.

"Henry, can we borrow a blanket?" Carlisle asked. "I'll send Edward to drop it back off later."

"Sure, you can take that one. And here, take a pair of socks: the ground's cold," he answered throwing Alice a pair of socks.

Once the socks were on, Henry and Carlisle helped me to the car and we went home. Alice warmed me up and lied with me until I woke up. Edward returned the blanket and the clothes I had borrowed and picked up my own clothes that I had left behind.

And, miraculously, Henry managed to keep his mouth shut and not tell anyone about what he saw that day. We even managed to maintain our friendship through it all. Sure, he treats me slightly different, in that he now refuses to pee in the same room as me, but I had always gone into a stall to avoid peeing in front of him, so this was not a big deal.

Also, Henry began treating me like a girl, insisting on getting the door for me and carrying heavy objects. That, however, was quickly settled when I punched him in the gut and told him to stop being a douche. He argued back, but it turned into a wrestling match, which I won. And since he did not want to admit defeat to a girl, he conceded that I was indeed a boy, and agreed to stop acting douchey. So, it all worked out in the end.


	48. Chapter 47

Emmett's POV:

When I first met the Cullen family, Alice was the first one to reach out to me. Their family was on a hunting trip in the neighboring cabin and Alice came up and introduced herself to me, "Hi, I'm Alice and we're gonna be good friends."

"Hi Alice, I'm Emmett," I returned the greeting, taking a break from chopping wood. "Are you folks moving back into your cabin then?"

"Oh Darwin no! That place is tiny. But we're staying for the week and I love this place so much that I'm gonna ask my parents if we can come here every vacation," she replied.

"Really? I didn't think the Cullens were much for country life. I've been here my whole life and ain't never seen your pa before."

"That's because he's always busy being a doctor. But he just adopted me a few months ago and I asked to come here for our vacation this summer and he agreed."

"You're adopted? Is that why y'all don't look alike?" I asked curiously. The two blonds looked like the pa, but the ma had brown hair and the other two kids had red and black.

"Yep. All four of us are adopted, which is why it's not gross that Jazz and I are dating."

"I just thought that you two were second cousins like me and Mary Sue, because I heard him call your pa his uncle. Mary Sue and I are betrothed to get hitched in a few years."

"Cool. Do you got a picture?" she asked me.

"Yep," I said pulling my wallet out of my pants pocket; it did not have any money in it, but it did have a picture of me and Mary Sue from last Christmas. She was not much of a looker but she was the best my pa could do for me. "Here she is."

"Poor you. In my family we get to arrange our own marriages. I picked Jasper. Hey, do you wanna go fishing later?" she asked me excitedly.

"I can't today, but it's on my chore list for tomorrow. I'm gonna head out around noon, care to join me?" I asked.

"Sure and I'll bring Jasper with me," she said before skipping off in the direction she had come, while I went back to chopping wood.

The next morning Alice came back over with the rest of her family. Her ma brought a pie and her pa wanted to talk to my pa about bear hunting. We ate the pie and then Alice, Jasper, and I went off to the fishing hole with our poles.

Once we were set up and waiting for a bite I asked Alice, "So why don't your older two brothers wanna fish?" They were closer to my age and I was curious as to why the younger two wanted to hang out with me, but not the older two. The oldest boy, Russell, had even scowled at me when I offered that he could come along with us too.

"Well Russell's mad at me for interfering in his life and Edward's trying to bring him around or something. They went swimming instead," she explained.

"And how come Jasper never talks?" I asked.

"He does, just he doesn't know you yet. He only talks around family and close friends. He told me he likes you though; otherwise he would've gone swimming with Edward and Russell."

"Okay," I replied unsure what to make of them.

I was glad to have a few more kids my own age around, but the Cullens were odd folk. Jasper and Russell spent their entire week's visit not speaking to me, while Edward would only talk to me when Russell was not around. He came along with Alice and me when we went fishing on Thursday, because Jasper and Russell had gone off bear hunting with their pa. Edward seemed nice enough that day, but then he was right back by Russell's side on Friday morning and not talking to me. Alice seemed to be the only normal one in the bunch.

Then Friday night I walked by their camp fire as they were roasting marshmallows and Russell actually invited me over to join them! I was supposed to be checking some traps my pa had set out, but they all looked to be having so much fun that I caved. And then Russell and Edward were talking to me like normal folk, but Jasper was still silent as a lamb. And when Pa came around I made like I had already checked the traps, instead of admitting that I had gotten side tracked.

But then my life changed Saturday morning when a bear came into our garden to eat our tomatoes. Pa pulled out his shotgun and tried to scare her away. I pulled out my rifle and took shot as well, but Pa and I both missed and only angered the bear. She roared up on her hind legs and mauled Pa, but I could not just let her kill him, so I steadied my gun and took aim again, this time hitting her square in the chest.

And then the bear was running after me and I was running in the direction of the Cullen's cabin, hoping their boys would be out with their guns. The bear caught up to me twice while I ran and each time she swiped me down, I fired a shot in her face and got back up. I kept running until I got to their cabin. I do not know how I made it, but eventually I came out of the clearing and I saw him standing there.

Russell looked like a beautiful angel standing there with his face framed in his gentle blond waves. I looked into his violet blue eyes and tripped on a stump in their yard and fell. I had already lost a lot of blood and was exhausted from my run, so I just laid there while I watched Russell fire three shots at the bear. And then she was dead and it was over.

I vaguely remember Russell treating my wounds and his pa coming back and given me a shot which took away the pain. I think the rest of his family was there too, but it was all too much of a blur for me to be certain. The one thing I was certain of was that Russell and Edward were there when I woke up in the hospital.

The Cullens became my guardians and took me back to Washington State to live with them. They were townsfolk and lived in a big town called Forks. They did not farm or nothing. The ma built houses and the pa was a doctor and they told me to call them Mom and Dad. It was nice having a mother again, but I missed my pa and had a hard time believing how few chores I was required to do with them.

I would have thought that Alice would be the one who would be there for me and help me to adjust, but instead she was always off with Jasper and it was Russell by my side. Whatever argument Russell had been having with Alice was over and did not concern me, so his bad mood had passed and we quickly became best friends. We had a lot in common, despite the fact that he was from a big town and I was from the country.

Russell had only been with the Cullens for two years and before that he had had a lot of responsibility, like me. Except his chores all involved taking care of his little sisters, while mine were all about preparing for winter and making sure we had enough to eat. And we were both what his pa called intersexed; in fact, all of the Cullen kids were.

I used to worry about not letting anyone see my genitals because I did not want anyone to know that I was different. Pa even said not to show Mary Sue until after the wedding, that way she could not back out. Most people said that Pa could have found me a better wife than Mary Sue, because I was tall and good looking, but Pa did not want to risk it because of my condition. A better looking girl would back out as soon as she knew the truth.

I had always been secretly worried that I was really a girl and that Mary Sue would want a divorce once she saw what was in my pants. I did not think I would ever be able to have sex with her like a husband was supposed to and that made me feel inferior as a man. But now that I was with the Cullens, I did not have to marry Mary Sue at all. My new parents said that I could marry who ever I wanted. Only trouble was there was no one I wanted.

Dr. Cullen explained to me that I was both part boy and part girl. He said that I could still be a boy, even though I had girl parts on the inside. And although I was a little disappointed to learn that I would never be a father, he did say that I could be a mother, which was close enough. I would just have to find a woman who was excepting of me and willing to use a sperm donor.

And if Russell could find someone, then so could I. Russell was like me in that he also had a vagina, but he did not have any balls at all. I at least had one ball, although Russell had a normal sized penis, while I had a micropenis. And despite his genital abnormalities, he had all of the girls in Forks chasing after him. He even liked one of them back.

Russell told me that he had a crush on a girl named Bella Swan, who was Edward's best friend. Bella seemed nice enough, although she was a little too mousy for my tastes and she reminded me of Mary Sue. That summer I tagged along with Russell and Edward and met a lot of their female friends, but I never really found one I liked. Russell used to point out girls and ask me if they were pretty and then Edward would get jealous and want in on the action. Sometimes I had trouble not laughing when Edward would ask me if some boy was hot, but I kept my cool, because I did not want to offend him. The last thing I wanted to do was offend my new brother.

But even if I was having trouble finding a girl, I at least had three wonderful new brothers and one fantastic new sister. I devoted my time to getting to know my four new siblings and spending time with them. Alice was spunky and cheerful and the cute little sister I had always wished I had. Edward was nice and fun to be around and he would play chest and video games with Alice and me for hours. But I had the most in common with Jasper and Russell.

Both Jasper and Russell loved to play sports and the three of us, along with the neighbor kid Henry, would spend all day playing football, baseball, or basketball. I had learned how to play these sports at school back in Tennessee, but I had never had so much free time to play. And I never had bothers that were willing to play whenever I wanted. But now I did and it was fabulous.

And having brothers around were useful for a lot of other things, not just playing sports. Like when I was fourteen and wanted to ask Dad for a porno. The other boys in my class were talking about them, but I had never seen one and I wanted to know what everyone was talking about. And my new parents said that I could have whatever I wanted and even gave me bags of condoms all of the time, so I was hoping a porno was not too much to ask for.

But I was scared to ask and one day I was thinking about it when Russell asked, "Hey, What's the matter Em?"

"Well I was just thinking about getting up the courage to ask Dad for something, but I'm worried I'm gonna be in trouble for asking," I replied.

"You won't get in trouble for asking. The worst he will do is say no. What do you want anyway Em?"

"A porno," I admitted blushing.

"Actually Edward and I've got a bunch of porn. Want to borrow some of mine?" he asked.

"What? But you're only thirteen!"

"Exactly. I'm thirteen and I've been getting my hormone shots since I was twelve. They make me really horny so I bought a few pornos from a kid I know. We can watch one together tonight if you want."

"Won't that be weird?"

"No. There's only one TV in the house and we can sit on separate couches and not look at each other," he replied shrugging.

"Okay, but don't tell Edward, because I don't want him so show me any of his porn." I felt obligated to look at the boys Edward thought were cute after every time Russell pointed out a hot girl. I did not want to go back and forth with the two of them on porn as well, because that would just be disgusting.

That night we waited until after everyone went to sleep before going downstairs. We each brought a bottle of lube our parents had given us and a towel to clean up with afterwards.

"There are some really hot chicks in this one," Russell said putting the disk in the DVD player.

I leaned over and looked at the cover, which showed two white chicks kissing. The movie started and was full of girl on girl action. There was a blond girl kissing a brown haired girl and then they took each other's clothes off. I got hard watching them lick each other's nipples, but then the blond one laid the other one down and started licking below the belt, which honestly was kind of gross.

Russell started making comments about how hot the girls were, so I tried to point out the features of each girl that I liked best, but the best part about all of these girls were their breasts. I really liked breasts and this movie had plenty of them. So I concentrated on the boobs and slipped my hand into my pajama pants to stroke myself.

I was not wearing boxers, so I had no problem reaching lower and inserting a finger inside me when the movie got to a particularly hot scene with two big busted women. It took me awhile, but eventually I found a rhythm I liked and added my other hand to stroke my micro. After a few more minutes I felt a tingling sensation in my one ball on the right, so I pulled my hand out of my pants and grabbed the towel.

I did not quite make it in time and my cum got on my pajama pants, but I just wiped it off. I probably should have stayed until the end of the movie, but I felt dirty, so I ran upstairs to take a shower, depositing the soiled towel in the hamper as I went. Russell was already in his room when I finished, so I went to sleep without telling him goodnight. The next morning I was worried that things would be different somehow between me and Russell, but instead everything was right back to normal and he and I went out front to play soccer with Jasper and Henry.

I had still never kissed a girl or found one I really liked when Edward's thirteenth birthday rolled around. That day at the beach he started dating Jacob and Alice said that we all needed to distract Mom so that Edward would not get in trouble. There were two native girls sitting on the rocks nearby and talking, so Henry suggested, "Let's go hit up those pretty girls."

The girls had beautiful russet skin, dark black hair, and perky tits, so I agreed and followed along behind him. "Hi, I'm Henry and this is my friend Emmett," he greeted the girls.

"I'm Beth and this is my friend Kim," the one with long hair replied. "What's up?"

"Well it's my brother's birthday and he took off to make out with some local named Jacob," I started.

"And we were thinking that Edward wouldn't get in trouble if we distracted our moms so that they don't see what he's doing down along the beach over there," Henry finished pointing to where Edward and Jacob could be seen making out in the waves.

"Oh my! Is that Jake?" Kim, the one with short hair asked.

"No way!" Beth exclaimed. "Little Jakey hasn't ever had a boyfriend!"

"And he won't ever have one again if our two moms see what they're doing," Henry replied.

"It doesn't look too bad. It's mostly the sounds that they're making that's gonna get Edward grounded for life," I supplied.

We were all silent for a moment and we could just barely make out the sound of a moan coming over the water. "Do you think that was Jake or the other boy?" Beth asked Kim.

"I don't know, but these two are cute. I call dibs on the tall one," Kim replied standing up and taking my hand.

"I think it was Edward moaning," Henry answered Beth. "But I'd love to hear you moan like that too."

Beth giggled and took his hand, while Kim led me down the beach a few feet. "I've never done this before," I admitted looking down at her: she really was short. I was at least a foot taller than her. From this angle, I had a great view of her breasts down her bikini top.

"It's okay, just lean down and press your lips to mine," she instructed.

I did as she said and touched my lips to her soft lips. I kind of liked it, but I was interrupted by my mother, who let out a shriek before saying, "Um Emmett, would you care to introduce me to your friend?"

"That's my mom," I whispered to Kim as I straightened back up from the kiss. "Mom, this is Kim, Kim, this is my mother, Mrs. Cullen."

"It's a pleasure to meet you Kim. When did you two meet?"

"Nice to meet you too. We met right now on the rocks over there," Kim replied pointing towards the rocks where Henry was making out with Beth.

"Oh dear, poor Mrs. Johansson mustn't have dealt with this before," my mom said looking at the shade of purple that was coloring Henry's mom's face.

Mom walked off and I took that as my cue to lean down again. Kim's lips were really full and soft and I liked kissing them, and like I said, she had nice boobs. We spent about fifteen minutes making out before we sat down in the sand together and started talking. She told me about her family and school and life on the reservation. I told her about growing up in the country and moving to Forks and being adopted by the Cullens.

Kim and I were having a really nice time when Beth joined us. "Henry's mom freaked and took him home," she said sitting down next to us.

So the three of us sat and talked for a while longer before deciding to go back into the ocean. We played with Bella, Russell, Alice, and Jasper, who were all already out in the waves. They had been splashing each other and trying to make as much noise as possible to cover up Edward's exploits on the other side of the beach. But when I looked over, he and Jacob were nowhere in sight.

"Hey, where did Edward go?" I asked.

"Edward and Jacob went back into the forest naked while Mom was talking to Mrs. Johansson about Henry's make-out session. Mom didn't even notice," Alice answered.

"We heard him moaning earlier. Did you guys make out what he was saying?" I asked.

"No, we couldn't tell," Bella answered.

"I bet he was screaming, 'Oh Jacob,'" I replied.

"I'll put ten down that it was, 'Spider Monkey,'" Alice retorted.

"Enough with the bets. When are you gonna introduce me to your girl Emmett?" Russell asked.

I introduced Kim and Beth and the seven of us continued to talk and play in the ocean until five. After that Mom called everyone to come in and Kim and I started making out by the car again. I really liked kissing her, so I got her number from Jacob later and called her up for a repeat. But as hard as I tried, I just was not feeling Kim enough to ask her to be my girlfriend. We just did not have that special spark and I really wanted that deep connection with someone.

I was really starting to think that there was something wrong with me. I was fourteen and had only ever kissed one girl. Sure I had like it, but I had not liked it enough. And I watched lesbian porn with Russell, but I always kept my eyes trained on the breasts when I came. I even thought the scenes where they used dildos on each other were weird, while Russell insisted they were really hot.

And then I met Seth when I was supposed to be babysitting Edward for my father. Seth was hot and gay and into me. And the weirdest thing was that that did not bother me. Instead I could not help but smile and blush when he was flirting with me. I was really nervous when he reached up and kissed me. But then the butterflies were gone and I felt a spark and I was kissing him back.

Making out with Seth was the polar opposite of making out with Kim, although both experiences were nice. Kim was soft and sweet and gentle, while Seth was hot, hard, and lacing his fingers into my hair to keep me close to him. He could not seem to get enough of me and I wanted more of him. But I was very away of the fact that my little brother Edward was watching me; that just made the whole experience of kissing a guy seem that much more surreal.

"Let's get some privacy," Seth suggested when he saw me looking at Edward. I agreed and let him lead me into Jacob's bedroom, but I had no idea what was to follow. If I had known I probably would have chickened out and stayed in the living room.

Seth wasted no time in removing my shirt and pulling his own off as well. He was kissing me so passionately that I was not even thinking and just followed along. He sat me down on Jacob's bed and pressed his lips to mine. It was not until he took my hand and placed it over his hard cock that I realized what I was doing and froze.

"What's wrong baby?" he asked me, pulling back from our kiss.

"Um…well you're a boy," I replied.

"So?" he asked leaning in to give me a light peck.

"I like girls," I admitted sheepishly.

"And you obviously like boys too otherwise you wouldn't've been flirting with me and kissing me back like that."

"I didn't know I liked boys."

"Ah come here babe," he said pulling me into his arms on the bed. "You like it when I hold you, right?"

"Yeah," I admitted. His arms were warm and hot and strong and it just felt nice and safe.

"And you like it when I kiss you, right?" he asked gently kissing my lips and sucking the lower one between his teeth before letting go.

"Oh yeah," I replied leaning in so that he would do it again.

"Then this will be okay," he said pushing me down on the bed and crushing his lips back to mine.

I felt his tongue lick my lips and it sent a tingle down my spine. I opened my mouth and returned the kiss as I watched his body hover over mine. His hands were on my arms, but then he moved them to my nipples and I moaned. I was so lost in the sensation that it was a minute before I realized what it was that he was pressing into my stomach.

"I don't think I'm ready for that," I admitted as I felt him grind his hard cock on me. Part of me wanted to reach out and touch it through his pants again, but the thought sent butterflies straight to my stomach.

"How about me touching you? Are you okay with this?" he asked lowering his hand to the waist of my jeans.

I gulped as his touch sent a shiver down my spine and straight to my dick. I was throbbing and my boxers felt wet; whether it was precum leaking from my cock or juices from my pussy or both, I was not sure. I was so horny that I was no longer thinking straight so I nodded for him to continue.

Seth unbuttoned my jeans and I helped him slide them down. Then he placed his hand on top of my hard micro through my boxers. "Emmett, why aren't you hard?" he asked me.

"I am. I have a birth defect: that's all I have."

"No wonder I scared you when I put your hand on mine then," he replied rubbing me through the cloth. He placed his other hand on the top of my waistband and pulled it down slightly. "Is this okay?"

"You might not like it," I answered scared that he would run as soon as he saw what was in my pants. That was always my fear with everyone.

"Maybe, but I'll never know if I don't try," he said nipping at my ear. I nodded and helped him pull my boxers down. I kept my legs closed so that he would not see too much at once.

"You're really tiny, but it's still a penis," he said touching me for the first time without anything between us. "I think you'll have to bottom."

"Bottom?" I asked curiously.

"Yeah, it means you'll have to be the one being entered. But tell me: how were you planning on having sex with a woman with this?"

"Russell shows me a lot of lesbian porn. I figured it'd go like that," I replied shrugging my shoulders, before reaching out to pinch his nipple. I loved breasts, and even if Seth was flat chested, nipples were nipples and I desperately wanted to feel one between my fingers.

"Can you make yourself cum like this?" he asked stroking my micro.

"No…" I answered blushing. I did not want to tell him where he had to put his fingers to make me cum.

"Will you show me how?" he asked me, sucking on my neck. I blushed, but did not respond. "Please Emmett? If it's weird or something I promise not to tell."

"It's really weird," I admitted, continuing to blush.

"You can cum, can't you?" he asked pulling back from my neck to look me in the eyes.

"Yeah," I admitted and opened my legs slightly. "But I only have one ball."

He looked down and saw the one ball peeking out from between my legs. "Do you like having it stroked?" he asked lowering his other hand to my ball, while continuing to stroke my micro.

I did not reply, but let him touch my ball. He immediately bought his hand to his face and asked curiously, "What's this wet stuff?" I was too scared to answer so I just looked away and blushed. "It's okay: you can tell me. Or we don't have to do this if don't want."

Instead of answering, I spread my legs a little wider and took his hand in mine. I led him to my opening and let him explore it with his fingers. His eyes popped wide open when he pushed one of his fingers inside, so I explained, "This is where I stroke to make myself cum."

"Wow," was all he said in response, but he continued to explore my vagina with his finger before crushing his lips back to mine.

We made out while he fingered me with one hand and stroked my micro with the other until I was panting and pushed his lips away so that I could breathe. I could feel the tingling in my one ball, so I said, "I'm so close Seth."

He picked up the pace on my micro and lowered his mouth to my nipple, while continuing to finger me with two fingers. After another minute I moaned and came all over his hand. "Wow, even your cum looks different," he said looking at my jizz in his hand. "I wonder if it tastes different." And then he raised his hand to his mouth and licked. "Yep, it tastes sweeter than mine."

"Yuck! You tasted it?" I asked confused as to what he was doing.

"Yeah. You've never tasted yours?" he asked offering his hand to me.

"Um, no thanks. And I think it looks normal," I defended my spunk. It was clear white, which I thought was how it was supposed to look. The only other person's I had seen was Russell's and I had not looked closely.

"Yours is more translucent and thinner than mine," he replied shrugging and licking his hand. "Mine tastes kind of bitter and salty, but yours reminds me of grapes."

"I don't taste like grapes," I protested pulling my boxers back up.

"Okay, maybe not grapes. But sweet like grapes," he replied licking the dribble that was running down his arm.

"Would you just go wash your hands already?" I asked grossed out and looking for my jeans.

"I haven't even tried licking the other hand yet," he replied lifting up the hand that had been in my pussy. He slowly inserted one of the fingers from that hand into his mouth before spitting it back out as I put my jeans back on. "Yuck! That one tastes like plain yogurt. Hmm…maybe if I combine the two…"

And then he stuck a finger from each hand in his mouth. "Nope!" he replied removing his fingers and retching. He ran off towards the bathroom, so I grabbed my shirt and followed after. I was really worried that I would find him puking, but instead he was just rinsing his mouth out. Then he washed his hands and arm. "Never combine your two types of jizz man: it's disgusting."

"I told you not to taste it in the first place."

"So how did it go?" Jacob asked as we came out of the bathroom and ending our conversation about my cum.

I did not know how to answer that, so I just blushed.

"It went okay, but it was a little weird," Seth admitted shrugging.

Seth and I spent the rest of the day talking while Jacob and Edward made out on the couch. After a while he admitted that he had lost his erection when he was fingering me. He said that the one ball and the tiny penis did not really bother him, but he was having trouble getting passed the vagina. And when I told him that I wanted to bottom with my vagina instead of my anus, he said to count him out; he just could not do it.

Seth liked my body and we got along okay as friends, but he just could not even imagine putting his penis inside a vagina, so we decided it was best not to try to pursue a relationship. It was a bit of a bummer, but at least he was nice about it and did not tell anyone. Plus, I still was not sure that I was even gay.

I had liked kissing Seth and having him hold me in his arms. I even liked him touching me, but I had freaked when he put my hand on him over his pants. I liked when my vagina felt full of fingers, but I had trouble imagining it full of cock. I was curious about what regular ones looked like, but that did not mean I wanted to touch one. And I still liked girls and boobs.

But I was only fourteen and I was not in any rush to grow up, so I decided to just not think about it for a while. Maybe I liked boys and girls a little bit and maybe it was confusing, but I had plenty of time to figure it out later. So I threw myself into my school work and my friends and my brothers. Life went on and I tried not to worry about finding a date or making out, like all the other boys in my class were obsessing over.

And then Bella moved away and broke up with Russell, so I had a partner in my single life. Russell now had a lot more free time on his hands and he was horny as they come, so he started watching porn with me almost every day. Back when we first started watching porn together, I would keep my eye on the screen and never look over to what he was doing.

But one day I glanced over at Russell while we were watching lesbian porn and I saw him stroking his ginormous cock. It was so long and thick that I just wanted to reach out and lick it. But what was I thinking? He was my brother and I liked girls! I could not be having these types of thoughts, so I excused myself and went to bed without cumming.

That night I had a dream that Russell was pounding me with his huge hard cock and I woke up with cum all in my pants. I was really embarrassed, so I cleaned up and hid my soiled garments in the laundry basket and even offered to wash my own clothes that day. And after that, I told Russell that I was not horny whenever he asked if I wanted to watch porn with him.

But about two weeks after that I got my first period and all my efforts to not think about my brother sexually went out the window. He offered me a back rub and came into my room wearing nothing but his pajama pants. I had seen him naked from the waist up before, but not for a few weeks. It had been cold at night, so he had been wearing a shirt to bed, and we had not jacked off together recently, so this was the first time I noticed his new chest. He had become curvier, more voluptuous; he had two perky little tits on his chest that I just wanted to reach out and squeeze. And I got hard instantly.

But I did not know what to say and then my mother had walked in and interrupted us. I was embarrassed, but I was also worried about my erection causing my pad to leak, and I did not want to dirty my bed. So I asked her how to handle an erection while wearing the pad. And then the most frightening part of my entire life followed when I admitted that I had gotten the erection from looking at my brother.

And then the most wonderful thing happened: Russell admitted that he had gotten hard looking at me too! I was not sure why this made me so happy, but it did. Russell's confession made me so horny that I could not help but rub one out while he was in his room talking to Dad. He caught me when he came back into my room and I thought he was going to be freaked out when I admitted that I was thinking about his boobs when I came.

But instead Russell said he would be thinking about my pussy when he did the same that night. I was so excited and turned on by the possibility that I decided to make a move while he was rubbing my back. I asked him to rub my front and then reached up and kissed him. And best of all, he kissed me back! And then we were making out and I was no longer concerned with whether I was gay or straight: all that mattered was that I was attracted to Russell and he returned my affection.

And ever since then our relationship has gone smoothly. Well except for the fact that Russell would not go all the way with me. We had been dating for over two years now and I was still a virgin. I was the only seventeen year-old virgin I knew and it was embarrassing. Plus, I just kept thinking that the reason Russell would not take me to bed was because I was not a girl.

Russell had fucked Bella after two years, so why was he not fucking me? And my insecurities intensified ten-fold when Bella came back. She showed back up in Forks in late August, after her no good mother ran off with some third-rate baseball player and left her with her stepdad in Arizona. The stepdad put her on a plane to Forks and sent her back to her real dad, Chief Swan, so she was now in our lives and interfering in our relationship.

It did not even take Bella long to show back up at my house, because even though she and Russell were no longer dating, she was still best friends with my brother Edward. She even had the nerve to speak to me when Russell stepped out of the room to take a whizz.

"Hey Emmett. Edward told me that you and Russell are a thing now. I must say that I was disappointed that he didn't wait for me and moved on so quickly, but you two look really cute together. Alice even told me that you two are meant to be together forever, so you won't have any problems from me. Alice told me that I should hit up Tyler," the stupid slut said.

Maybe I was being too hard on Bella, but she had the nerve to say that she wished Russell would take her back when he was madly in love with me? She was the one who left him! It was just wrong on so many levels and I already hated her for being the one to take my man's virginity. Now she was back and I still had not gotten Russell to fuck me and I was really worried that if that did not change soon, he was going to go back to Bella the whore and I would lose him forever.

It was really hard knowing that if I made one wrong move, Russell's ex was waiting there with open arms to take him back. And if he went back to her, he would have no problem putting out. That knowledge put a lot of strain on my relationship with Russell and consequently we were fighting a lot more lately. I was sure that any day now he was going to dump me to get back into Bella's pants and I could not let that happen.

Finally, the day of the first school dance, I confronted Russell in his bedroom with my fears. "Why is it that we're always hanging out with Edward and Bella now? What happened to just you and me in the garage?" I asked when he mentioned that Bella, Seth, and Edward would also be at the dance.

"Bella and I are just friends; I told you that a million times Emmett. Why won't you believe me?" he asked exasperated.

"Because you fucked her, but you won't touch me."

"Exactly, I fucked her. I didn't make love to her. I didn't love her. I love you, you block head! What do I have to do to convince you of that? Why do you even think I'd want Bella back? She has been with like five guys since we broke up. I don't need someone like that in my life."

"So you only don't want her back because she's a slut?" I asked. "You only want me because I'm a virgin? I'm the only virgin in my entire graduating class Russell!"

"I don't want to make you my slut too. I want to wait until we're married. I told you all of this before. I'll be eighteen in a year and a half. Why can't we wait?" he pleaded.

"Because I don't believe that you will wait. I think you'll be getting some from Ms. Bella on the side."

"I won't! I like you! I love you! What more do I have to say?"

"I don't believe you. You've always said that you're bi just for me and besides that you're straight. Well if I'm not good enough for you because I'm a boy I'd like to know now so that I can move on with my life!"

"Fine, you know what? I'm bi and it's not just for you. Does that make you feel better?" he asked angrily.

"Prove it," I replied not believing him.

"Edward and I masturbated together in the shower once. Dad told me to make sure he did it because he had blue ball and I got so horny listening to him stroke himself I joined him, even though he didn't want me to, so I'm bi for him too. And I got hard when looking at gay porn with Edward," he admitted.

"How do I know you aren't making this up? And when did it happen? Have you been cheating on me with Edward?"

"See you're over-reacting again! We masturbated together when we were twelve! Same thing with the porn: I got Edward a gay porn after Bobby broke up with him to try and cheer him up. We watched it together when you were asleep. You can even ask Edward. But it hasn't happened since we were twelve."

"Fine, I will," I said exiting Russell's room and knocking on Edward's door.

Edward let me in and confirmed Russell's story about the mutual masturbation in the shower and while watching porn. It upset me that they had been hiding this from me all of these years, but it also made me feel better that Russell was not completely straight. He really did like boys and not just me.

So I went back into Russell's room and apologized. "I'm sorry Rus, I overreacted. I'm just so scared of losing you. Can you ever forgive me?"

"Of course. Come here," he said holding his arms open for me.

I walked forwards and he embraced me. We made out and then agreed to go to the dance together and not talk about Bella. "Darwin, I'll even tell the whole school I think Seth and Edward are hot if it'll make you less self-conscious in my choice to be with you. Although pretty much everyone already knows that I like dick. You know last week Bobby asked me if I let you give it to me up the ass and I replied, 'Yeah, whenever Emmett asks,' because I love you so much and I know it bothers you that people know we aren't sleeping together yet," he said hugging me.

"You don't have to say that Seth and Bobby are hot, just say that you like dick and aren't into pussy at all. That should be good enough," I replied leaning down to kiss his forehead.

"Of course Em. Pussy is totally gross. I don't know why I even like yours so much anyway," he replied smirking before reaching up on his tip-toes for a kiss.

"Fine, you got me there, but say it in front of Bella anyway," I said before returning the kiss.

"Anything for you. I love you," he replied breaking the kiss before crushing his lips to mine once more. Too bad we did not have enough time for a trip to the garage before the dance.

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><p>Author's note: So what did you all think of Emmett's POV?<p> 


	49. Chapter 48

Author's Note: Warning, there is a lemon in the middle of this chapter…

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><p>Russell's POV:<p>

"What the Darwin, Emmett!" I yelled storming into the garage after him and Bobby.

I had raced home after them as fast as I could, after seeing them take off together from the school dance. It was only three weeks into the start of my junior year, but the stupid school had decided to host a school dance to promote "school spirit," or some other Newton. It had sounded like a fun time and all of my siblings were going, and Emmett had asked me to be his date. Never would I have guessed it would end like this.

The first thing that went wrong was that Leah, Sam, and Jacob showed up on our doorstep this morning to say that Maria had been in the area again. Maria was some psycho chick that the Quileutes and our Alaskan cousins hated, but she had a huge crush on Jasper. Maria was bad news and dangerous, so whenever she was around, our Quileute body guards were there. And since we were going to the dance, they were going too.

Jacob and Sam said that they would take the periphery, while Leah was to come inside with us and watch Jasper. We would only have one chaperone and Leah was only two years older than me, so I did not think that it would be too bad. But that was before Emmett and I got in yet another fight over sex.

Emmett wanted it, but I wanted to wait. We had been together almost two and a half years and Emmett was already seventeen. He thought he had been a virgin long enough and wanted sex now. I had had sex before, but I had also made Bella wait for over two years before putting out. And this was not Bella I was dealing with: this was the love of my life who I wanted to marry.

I wanted to marry Emmett and wait for our honeymoon to make love to him for the first time. I wanted to do everything right with him because I knew he was the one. I did not want to turn him into my slut who put out whenever I wanted it just because he was my boyfriend. Emmett was a virgin and I thought it was reasonable for him to wait a little while longer to lose that virginity the right way. We only had a year and a half to go until I turned eighteen and we could be married.

But no matter how many times I said this, Emmett would not listen. "I don't believe you anymore Russell! I think you won't sleep with me because you aren't attracted to me because I'm a boy. You had no problem giving it to Bella in less time than we've been together. We're both older now, so it should take less time to get to the sex, not more. I'm through playing games with you: we're over!" he had yelled at me.

My ex was a particularly sore spot for us right now, because she had recently moved back to Forks after having gone to live with her mother for the past two and a half years. I started dating Emmett less than three months after she left and this was the first time our relationship has had to deal with having her around.

I kept telling Emmett that I was not into her anymore and I still wanted him and no one else, but when Bella greeted me with a hug after arriving at the dance, Emmett lost it. It was just a hug for Darwin's sake! What was I supposed to do? Back away and refuse the hug like she had the plague? We had been really good friends and she was still best friends with our brother Edward, so that would have been extremely rude. But now I was paying the price for being nice to Bella because the love of my life had taken it the wrong way.

I had gone after Emmett and tried to patch things up. This fight over sex was not something new for us: we had been having it for about two years now. I would consent to everything short of penetration, but that just was not good enough for him anymore. I was sure that I was satisfying him sexually, but he just kept saying he wanted more.

Truthfully I thought this was all just some male machoness thing, because it was not manly to be a seventeen year-old virgin or something. And as long as this was about proving something to someone else, then I was going to hold my ground. I would not give in to Emmett's demands for sex because of peer pressure. My friends at school were always asking me if I tapped Emmett's ass yet, and I always respected Emmett's body by replying, "Not yet, but I definitely want to as soon as we're married."

Emmett knew how I felt about marriage. My biological mother had never been married and look where it got her? A dozen kids confiscated and locked up in jail serving five to ten years behind bars. My adopted mother did get married and she has five children, a loving husband, a beautiful home, and a job she loves without jail time. I had dreams and goals and I did not want to ruin it all because I could not keep it in my pants!

So I got to the point where I was so mad at Emmett, I said, "Fine. If you want to break-up, then we'll break up. I'm sure I can find someone else here to dance with me!"

Then I had stormed off and danced with the first girl I ran into, which just happened to have been Leah. Leah was coming back with a report from the field that Maria had taken off. Jacob and Sam had followed in hot pursuit, while she was to stay with Alice and Jasper. The threat was likely over, but she was to stay in case Maria doubled-back.

As Leah was telling me this, I grabbed her by the waist and led her towards the dance floor. "Dance with me," I said into her ear just as she finished her spiel.

"What's going on Russell?" she asked as we slow danced.

"Emmett and I just broke up and I wanted to dance with the prettiest girl here while I'm single," I replied as seductively as possible.

"I thought you were gay?"

"Bi."

"Well you know I have a fiancée, right?"

"I won't tell if you don't," I said leaning in for the kiss.

She was backing away, trying to block my kiss, but Emmett did not see that. All Emmett saw was me about to kiss Leah and he ran off crying. I tried to run after him, but I lost him in the crowd. I found him again five minutes later in Bobby's arms. They were making out and heading towards the doorway.

"What are you doing Emmett!" I confronted him. "Are you leaving with him?"

"Yes. He has no problems with fucking me right now so we're going home!" he yelled before grabbing Bobby's hand and leading him to his car.

Edward had brought Bella, Seth, and Leah with him, in his new car. I had seen Bella dancing with Tyler, while Leah was keeping an eye on all of us to make sure we were safe. Seth did not go to our school and had no reason for being at our dance, because he and Edward were not dating. But they were good friends and often agreed to accompany each other to events like dances, because they had a good time and got to dance with another dude and did not have to worry about being gay and single.

And since Edward already had four people in his car, Alice, Jasper, and Sam had rode with me. This left Jacob to ride with Emmett. We could have squeezed into just two cars, but it would have been tight and Alice had said that we would want all three, because there was a high likelihood that Edward and Seth would want to leave early; dances get boring after a while when you are single and gay and there are no other gay kids in attendance besides your two ex-boyfriends.

Now that I was running after Emmett and watching him take off with Bobby in his car, I was glad my sister had insisted that we take three cars. Now I was free to hop in my car and give chase, without having to consider how my siblings would get home: Alice and Jasper would ride with Edward, Seth, and Leah. Bella could bum a ride from Tyler; Alice said they would be going back to his place anyway. And Jacob and Sam could run home for all I cared right now.

Emmett slammed his car door in my face and I ran to my car, fishing my keys out of my pocket as I went. I pulled out onto the highway only moments after them and kept on their tail the entire way home. Emmett and Bobby had barely gotten out of the car when I was pulling up and slamming my door closed behind me in anger. They had made it just inside the garage before I grabbed Emmett and confronted him. And now I was face to face with my boyfriend or ex-boyfriend, with Bobby right behind him.

"Go up. I'll meet you there in a minute," Emmett said to Bobby before turning to face me with a hard look in his eyes. "We're through Russell. You aren't my boyfriend any longer. I saw you making out with Leah, so don't even pretend like you want me back. We all know that Russell's a Darwinian ladies man and doesn't like dick, so you just turn around and Bobby here's gonna give me his cock!"

"No Emmett! Don't do this!" I begged still holding onto him.

"I'm losing my virginity tonight one way or the other. Now let me go!" he yelled pulling my hands off of him.

When Emmett was angry, he was terrifying. And despite the fact that I was the dominant partner in our relationship, he was four inches taller than me and had about fifty pounds of muscle on me. So no matter how hard I tried to cling to him, he just pried off my hands, picked me up, and set me back on my feet outside the garage door.

As soon as he let me go, I went to follow him back into the garage, but I stumbled and he got the door closed before I could reach it. I turned the handle, but he was using his body weight to bar it shut as he locked it. I ran to my car to get my garage opener, to open the large door for the cars, but that took me almost a minute. By the time I pushed the button, it was too late: Emmett had already turned off the opening mechanism.

My parents had put in a convenient off switch for the garage door so that they would not walk in on us. The lock on the regular door had also been installed for the same purpose, because now that there were five of us using the garage, they had trouble keeping track of when they should not be in there. Having the ability to lock our parents out saved a lot of embarrassing accidents from occurring.

But our parents still had a key in case of emergency, so I ran into our empty house as fast as I could go. My parents were out on a date, because it was not often that we all left the house and gave them time to be alone. I ran straight to Mom's office and to her rack of spare keys; she had a key to every room in the house in here. I quickly found the one labeled garage and grabbed it.

I ran back out to the garage, unlocked the door, and ran up the ladder before I had time to formulate a plan of action. But as soon as I saw Emmett almost naked underneath Bobby's naked body, all thought left my head and I went on instinct. I picked up Bobby's shirt and pants from their position on the ground, grabbed him around the neck, and pulled him off of the man I loved.

"My parents told you to _never_ come back here Bobby after what you did to Edward! Now you can either leave right now, or I can get my rifle and show you what I did to the bear that was attacking Emmett," I growled at my want-to-be usurper.

"Fine, I'll go. Emmett, call me later," Bobby said taking his clothes and heading for the ladder, naked.

"Okay Bobby. We'll have to do this at your place," Emmett said as I took Bobby's place on the bed.

"No, you won't be doing anything at his place or with him at all. You're mine!" I said fiercely, hovering over him.

"Prove it," he challenged lying there underneath me and looking up at me with his big gorgeous round brown eyes.

I crushed my lips to his passionately and fiercely, claiming his mouth with my own. As we kissed, he started pulling off my clothes. He pulled off my shirt and went to work on my pants and I looked down at him and took in what he was wearing: he was down to just his boxers from his time with Bobby.

I backed up off of the bed, pulling down my pants and boxers in one motion, before returning to rip Emmett's boxers off of him. "Just what were you thinking Emmett? Bobby dumped Edward when he saw Edward's little tiny winkie! Just what did you think he was gonna do when he saw yours?" I growled at him, still furious that he would even consider giving his virginity to that loser.

Emmett did not respond verbally, but went for the physical approach instead: he pulled me down onto him and crushed his lips to mine. I returned the kiss passionately as I felt him reach between us to stroke my cock. I was hard, throbbing, and leaking precum already. I was not even thinking about what we were doing as I heard Emmett tear open a condom wrapper and felt him rolling a condom down my shaft. As soon as he was done, he guided my shaft to his entrance and I pushed in hard, claiming Emmett as my own.

"Ugh!" he screamed out as I pushed him back into the bed, pulling out and slamming into him again. He let out another scream and I took it as a sign to pound him harder. I placed my arms on the bed on either side of him and used all of my leverage to thrust into him with everything I had, over and over again.

Emmett was screaming with every thrust, so I asked him, "You like that Em? You like me fucking you hard? Is this want you wanted? You wanted me to make you my whore?" With every word, I entered him fast, hard and deep, rolling my hips at the end to make sure he felt me all the way up in him. I was not small- I now had eight and a half inches of dick- and I used all of it to show him I meant business. I had not grown much in length as a result of the testosterone shots, but I had grained over an inch in circumference over the years of hormone therapy, so I had a lot more girth to fuck Emmett with now than I had had with Bella back in the days.

Emmett nodded and I leaned down to give him a peck on the lips before lifting back up so that I could keep pounding into him. But this time, I balanced myself on one arm and used my other hand to stroke his micropenis. He was hard and leaking precum, which I used to spread around his head for lubrication. I stroked him in time with my fucking, making sure to get his G-spot with every other stroke as I gave it to him hard.

Emmett screamed out, "Russell!" after about ten minutes and I felt his pussy walls clamping down on my cock, signaling his orgasm. I looked down and watched his cum erupt from his dick, painting his micro, his stomach, and my own stomach. I just kept fucking him through it until he was moaning with each thrust again.

I leaned down to kiss him, smearing his cum around, before whispering in his ear, "Was it good baby?" He nodded. "I'm not done. I'm gonna make you scream my name three times before I let you up to breathe." And again, I pushed into him with each word. But this time I slowed down and did it just a bit softer, to let him catch his breath from his orgasm.

It only took him a minute to recover before his micro was hard again and I felt it pressing into my groin. I wanted to feel closer to him, so I wrapped my arms under his armpits and around the back of his neck, pulling him closer to me as I fucked him. This time I alternated between lavishing kisses behind his ear and along his neck, and taking his lips with my own, as I continued to thrust into him.

As I went, I began to get the feel for what motion would stimulate his micro best, without me having to reach down and touch, based on the urgency of his moans. I found that if I rocked forward with the micro crushed between us, it would slide from my mound to my lower abdomen, using his own cum as lubrication.

Emmett was already sensitive from the first orgasm, and unlike me, he was easier and easier to make cum each time. I knew this because we spent a lot of time in this garage together. I had no problem licking his micro, eating his pussy, stroking his dick, or fingering his cunt. The only thing we had not done until just now was make love, so I knew his body as well as I knew my own. Maybe better, in fact.

I loved Emmett's body: it was perfect. There were none of those annoying tits to get in the way like on regular women and it was so easy to tell when he was aroused or cumming, thanks to his micro. I even liked being able to watch him bust his load all over the place, because it was hot and made me feel empowered that I was able to do that to him.

Emmett was like putty under my hands and I was not surprised when he started panting after another few minutes. I recognized this breathing rhythm as indicative of him being about to cum, so I pulled back a little bit and angled directly into his G-spot, before pushing back in hard. I did this five times, and on the fourth time, I felt cum erupting from Emmett's micro and spraying my stomach as he screamed my name again.

Being sprayed by Emmett with his cum was hot and provided us with even more lubrication, which was sorely needed because I was fucking him so hard. I could feel his pussy leaking down my leg, but that did not lubricate his micro. His micro needed plenty of moisture as I crushed it into my pubes over and over again in an effort to get him hard again.

Emmett did not have much of a recovery time and his pussy was good to go immediately, but I still wanted him hard again, because I wanted to make good on my promise and hear him scream my name that third time. So like last time, I fucked him through his orgasm and kept on going, transitioning smoothly between milking the last drop of his orgasm from him and getting him hard again.

"I can't breathe. Slow down Russell," Emmett panted in between breaths, still flushed from his release.

I complied and slowed down the pace. I made sure to still fuck him hard and deep, getting his G-spot on at least every other stroke, but this time I went slowly. I slowly pushed into him as deep as I could go, giving my hips a little extra roll to make sure he felt just how big I was.

Emmett went straight from panting for breath to moaning for more, quivering underneath me as he achieved his third erection for the night. "Do you like it slow like this baby?" I asked him before leaning down and kissing his neck. He nodded, but did not speak. I had only gotten two words out of him this entire time, and they were both my name. For some reason, I really wanted to hear him beg for my cock right now. "Answer me Em. Do you like when I fuck you slow like this?"

"Mmm-hmm," he moaned as I sucked on his neck. I guess that will have to do.

I bit down lightly, until I was sure that I had marked him. Then I leaned back, supporting my weight with both arms again, so that I had access to his nipples. His nipples were small and hard for me. I flicked the left bud with my tongue, causing Emmett to shudder. I liked that response so much that I did it again, before repeating the process on the other one.

When I looked up from his chest, I noticed that he was looking back down at me. But instead of watching me lick his nipples, he was staring at my breasts as they bounced with every trust of my hips. "You like that huh? You want to touch?" I asked taking all of my weight on my right arm and using my left to guide his right hand to my left breast.

Up until now, Emmett had been using his hands to fist the sheets and was otherwise keeping them to himself as he thrashed around underneath me. Now he looked up into my eyes as he squeezed my breasts in his firm hand. I still only had A-cups, but he loved them like they were Darwin's gift to mankind. He was the only reason I was keeping the stupid things.

"Do you wanna get on top, Em?" I asked him and he gasped in response, but did not nod or shake his head. I wanted him to get a chance to be in control for a few minutes, because after all, this was his first time and I wanted to make it perfect for him, so I flipped us over. "Get it Em, your turn now."

Emmett seemed to be unsure what to do at first. He slowly lifted his cunt off of my cock and sat back down on me a few times. But that motion was not stimulating his micro at all and he kept trembling, so I took pity on him and grabbed his hips. I pulled him down onto my cock, hard, which caused him to let out a gasp, because he was not expecting it. Then I pulled his hips forward, showing him how to rock back and forth on my dick and grind his cock into my cum-soaked pubes as he went.

Emmett caught on quickly and was moaning on top of me in no time. He reached down and fondled my chest as I laid back and relaxed. I had a great view of Emmett's body in this position and I was hot and sweaty from my earlier efforts, so I just enjoyed the show. Even watching him touch my breasts was hot, because it was Emmett touching me. Just the thought that he wanted me as much as I wanted him sent shivers down my spine.

Emmett started panting while riding my cock and lost his rhythm, faltering in his approaching orgasm. I took over, flipping him onto his back again as I fucked him through his third orgasm of the night. He started shooting his lode without saying it, just letting his eyes roll back in his head as he moaned and enjoyed the sensation.

"Say it!" I ordered, pounding into him.

He knew just what I wanted, because he opened his eyes, looked straight at me, and panted, "I love you Rus," just as the last spurt of his cum left him.

"I love you too, Em," I replied leaning down for a kiss.

His pussy kept spasming for about a minute after his penis stopped erupting. By the time I felt the last of the contractions wane, his micro was soft and tiny again. And suddenly looking down at our groins covered in his cum and his button dick made me feel horrible: I had wanted to wait to do this until out honeymoon. I had wanted to make Emmett mine legally before I made him mine physically. I had done this all wrong and I hated myself for not thinking.

Tears started falling from my eyes before I started sobbing. I had not moved since Emmett had stopped cumming, but I was still inside him and quickly losing my erection. "What's wrong baby?" Emmett asked me still panting as I pulled out. There was a little bit of blood, because he had been a virgin, but not much. "Did you finish?"

I didn't answer Emmett; I just pulled off the condom, tossed it to the floor, and climbed into his arms. I let him hold me while I cried. I do not know how long I cried, but finally the tears stopped and I had to explain. "That's not how I wanted to take your virginity Em. I wanted to be married first. Now I've made you like any other twenty-dollar-ho."

"You didn't make me your whore Rus. It was beautiful and wonderful," he said taking my head into his hands and kissing my tears away as I continued to cry. "We can still get married."

"You mean that?" I asked looking into his eyes. "You'll marry me?"

"Of course I'll marry you! Come here Rus," he exclaimed pulling me tightly into his strong embrace.

"Road trip!" Alice chimed from below. I had not heard Edward's car pull up or the garage door open. But come to think of it, I had not even closed that door myself: Bobby had been the last one out and he must not have locked it. "Hurry up and get dressed so that you can tell me which set of fake IDs you want to use!"

"Alice?" Emmett asked me puzzled. I just shrugged, so Emmett got up and grabbed my shirt. He threw me the shirt and went over to the half wall still naked, which he could do since he was the one without breasts. "What do you want Alice?"

"I've been waiting on the two of you to get engaged forever so that we can go on a road trip! We're going to Vegas so that you two can get hitched and Russell can take your virginity properly. He'll be very upset if you don't and I've been itching to try out my psychic powers with the roulette wheel," I heard Alice's voice echo off of the garage ceiling.

"Fine, we'll be down in a minute," Emmett replied grabbing his shirt and throwing me my pants.

I guessed that we really were going to talk to our sister in the middle of our heart-felt discussion, so I pulled on my shirt, found my boxers, and quickly got dressed. Emmett finished dressing first, so he grabbed the used condom from off the floor and examined it. "You didn't cum," he accused me.

"I just couldn't defile your body any further," I replied shrugging.

The sheet was ruined, so I tore it off the bed and grabbed another one. "Help me clean up real quick."

He tossed away the condom and helped me with the sheet. Then we quickly threw all of the pillows back where they went and Bobby's tighty whities into the trash. He must have been in a hurry to leave to have forgotten his underwear behind.

"Okay Alice, what are you talking about?" Emmett asked descending the ladder first.

I followed right behind him and peered over his shoulder at the ID cards Alice was holding out. "Fake ID time again. I wasn't sure which names you'd want to use, so I made some options," Alice replied.

"What's wrong with Emmett and Russell Cullen like we had last time?" Emmett asked. Alice had given Seth, Edward, Emmett, and I fake IDs to use at a club once over a year ago. We had a fun time and went to a gay night club for men eighteen and up, but we gave the fake IDs back at the end of the night and Alice had not brought the subject up ever since.

"One, you can't have the same last name if you're getting married: it's against the law for brothers to marry in this country. Two, gay marriage is illegal in Nevada," Alice answered. "There are two vaginas between the two of you; one of you has to be the girl and that person also needs to use his maiden name."

Emmett took two sets of IDs into his hands and passed me one. The one he gave me featured a normal looking me, but an extremely fugly looking Emmett. "Alice, what did you do to Emma McCarty's picture?" I asked my sister as I stared at the female version of Emmett.

"Sorry, but he doesn't give me much to work with. I found one where he was clean shaven and added a wig in Photoshop. A little make-up and voila, Emma. I think she's hot," Alice defended her work.

"What does our other set look like Em? We can't use this one," I said passing him my set to trade. Emmett handed me a set in which he appeared normal, but my card read Rustina Rosalie Hale. I had a wig and make-up Photoshopped in, but I looked pretty hot as a chick. "Fine, we'll use these."

"Excellent, now just let me book our flights. Edward and Jasper, they're fully clothed, you can come in here and pick your own IDs," Alice called through the open garage door as she opened up her laptop which she had left on the garage counter.

"Sorry, Alice is a lot braver than the rest of us," Edward replied as he and Jasper each took a stack of ID cards from Alice.

"Where'd you get all of these Alice?" Edward asked our sister while he looked through his stack.

"I made them of course! Making fake IDs is my hobby," Alice trilled her reply. "And look how handy they're coming in. They allowed me to get this credit card in my name which I'm using to book five flights to Vegas, because you insisted on dropping Seth off already and Bella's still being ate out by Tyler. And then I'll be booking us three rooms in a casino and we'll all be able to get in and do whatever we want, except for drink, because our IDs don't say that we're twenty-one yet."

"What about Carlisle and Esme?" Jasper asked.

"You boys worry too much. It's still early, we've got plenty of time to make it to Port Angeles and catch our over-night flight. Mom and Dad are already checked into a hotel in Neilton and won't be back until noon tomorrow. We leave a note saying that we're going shopping in Seattle and then we call Saturday morning and ask permission to go. I can see that they won't be home, so they'll think that we _are_ home, because the caller ID will just show Emmett's cell.

"Seattle's a long drive, and we'll claim that we hit traffic. We'll call at about three and tell them that we just arrived and are hitting the shops. We'll have a movie and dinner planned, and Emmett will drive us back at night. But it'll be so late by the time the movie gets out and it's so long of a drive in the dark, that they'll buy that we didn't wanna drive back Saturday night. We'll call at eleven and they'll tell us to stay in Seattle and book a hotel for the night.

"Sunday morning we'll call around eleven, claim we slept in, but are on our way home. Then we'll say we hit really bad traffic on the way back, and by Sunday night, our flight back from Vegas will drop us off in Port Angeles, where we'll retrieve our car and drive home. I'll have won a ton of money, Russell and Emmett will be married, and Edward will have gone to a number of gay bars, clubs, strip-clubs, and other various shows for the homosexually inclined. Any questions?" Alice finished.

"You really thought this through, huh Alice?" Emmett asked giving her a fist bump.

"I can see it all already and I've been planning it for years. Now everyone go pack your bags because our flight leaves in an hour and a half and we still have to drive to Port Angeles first. Except for you Russell: you need to transform into Rustina, so I already have a bag of girl clothes packed for you. Just change into these clothes and I'll finish your transformation in the car," Alice ordered handing me a stack of clothes and we all obeyed.

Everyone exited the garage and I quickly put on the women's underwear, jeans, socks, and shoes Alice had given me. Then I struggled with the bra for a minute, but managed to get it on, finally. I never would have imagined that Mom would be proven right in that knowing how to put on a bra would one day come in useful. As soon as the bra was on, I slipped the shirt on.

Alice already had our bags packed, so Jasper and I helped Edward and Emmett pack their own. And while the rest of us were busy, Alice set up the house to look like we had been here tomorrow morning. She pulled out two boxes of frozen waffles, which she put onto plates and cut up, before drizzling syrup on top. Then she tossed around the mixture before throwing half of it down the toilet and flushing. The rest she left on the dining room table as evidence of our breakfast, next to our note, which was sticky with syrup as well.

Then we piled all of our stuff into Edward's Volvo and were off.


	50. Chapter 49

Author's note: Warning, there is a lemon at the end of this one…

* * *

><p>Russell's POV:<p>

Our impromptu trip to Las Vegas was turning out exactly as Alice had predicted. On the way to the airport, Alice sat next to me in the backseat and pulled out a wig for me and makeup. The wig went on quickly, but then Alice spent forever pinning it in place so that it would not fall off. Alice putting makeup on me while in a moving vehicle was much more of a challenge, luckily she was psychic and knew when to pause because Edward was about to drive over a bump. When she was done she handed me a pocket mirror and I have to say that I looked very hot as a chick; it helped that I did not have any facial hair, my Adam's apple was practically not existent, and I had the whole androgynous thing going on.

Our fake IDs got us past security at the airport flawlessly. No one even questioned that fourteen year-old Alice was not eighteen, although the ID checker did do a double-take when looking at fourteen year-old Jasper's ID claiming that he was also eighteen. After all, Jasper still had not gotten his first chin hair, but he had grown this past year and was now five foot ten, so they let him past. We made our flight, slept on the plane, and grabbed a taxi to a casino in the wee hours of the morning. Alice checked us in without any hassle over our fake IDs and we all went back to sleep.

Alice, with Jasper and Edward in tow, came knocking on our door at ten in the morning. "I've got schedules for everyone to maximize our productivity on this trip. Everyone needs to follow the schedule to the letter, especially the parts with Russell and Emmett's wedding and our calls home to Mom and Dad. First up on the list is to call our parents and wake them up, because they're still asleep at their hotel. Emmett, you need to do the honors. Here's your script," Alice said handing Emmett a word-for-word script of what Emmett and Dad were going to say in the next five minutes.

Emmett read through his script, while I looked over a schedule. Shopping for rings and wedding clothing was next on the list after breakfast. Then there was lunch followed by our wedding. As soon as the wedding was complete, we would call our parents and announce our arrival in Seattle. And after the phone call, Emmett and I had a seven hour block to spend in our hotel room before we were required to make another phone call to our parents. We had a few hours to sight see tomorrow morning and play a few slot machines, but then we had to head back to the airport to catch our flight.

"Alice, I don't know if I can do this," Emmett said after reading the script.

"You'll be fine, just trust me. They're not gonna be suspicious because they're half asleep. As soon as you say your lines, pass the phone to me and I'll talk their ears off about shopping in Seattle. You're the oldest, so they have to know that you're on board with this," Alice replied handing Emmett his own cell from the night stand.

Emmett, Edward, and I all had our own cell phones, but Alice and Jasper did not, because they were only fourteen. We each received our cells from our parents for our fifteenth birthdays. Sixteen was far better, because we each got the cars. But all Emmett got for his seventeenth birthday was a large savings bond for University. I guess that was just their way of hinting that University was a requirement, not an option.

"Hi Dad?" Emmett said into his phone after dialing the number. "Alice and the others keep pestering me to take them shopping. Well mostly Alice, but everyone else wants to go to Seattle too. Is it alright if I drive them there?"

Emmett's voice came across as slightly annoyed, because of Alice's pestering him over the lines. But if Alice was pestering him over a shopping trip in the city, slightly annoyed was the right tone of voice to have. After Emmett finished all of his lines perfectly, he handed the phone to Alice who trilled on for about five minutes about what she wanted to do in the city, before saying, "Thanks Daddy! I love you. Tell Mommy I said hi!"

Then she hung up and we were free and clear for the day. "Breakfast time," Alice ordered picking out clothes for Emmett and me. She picked jeans and a t-shirt for Emmett, but she had brand new girl jeans and a matching blouse for me. She, Jasper, and Edward were already dressed, so Emmett and I quickly changed and then we all went down for breakfast. After breakfast, Alice took us first to get clothes for Emmett, Jasper, and Edward, and then to get dresses for me and her. Jasper and Edward were going to be our groomsmen, while Alice would be our maid of honor, and the three of them would be our witnesses.

"Do I really have to wear a dress Alice?" I asked as we entered the dress shop. I had seen lesbians wear pantsuits to their weddings; surely I could pull off a pantsuit.

"Yes. We don't want them questioning your fake ID, so you need to look like a chick. And that slouching your shoulders thing you're doing isn't exactly helping, because we need to emphasize those boobs of yours," she replied.

"Finally my boobs are coming in useful for something," I replied sarcastically as she helped me find a dress.

After clothing, Alice took us to a jewelry store. "Now all four of us are gonna get simple bands and tell Mom and Dad that they're promise rings in order to keep this trip a secret. They'll never suspect that you two got married if Jasper and I've got the same rings," she said pointing to a series of plain platinum bands. "And if they ask, they're silver, not platinum."

The rings were simple enough to be masculine, but still elegant enough that Alice and Rustina could get away with them. I looked Emmett in the eye and he said, "They're perfect Alice. We'll take them."

So after purchasing four identical platinum bands, the five of us had lunch before stopping back off at the hotel. I squeezed my boobs into the push-up bra Alice had bought me and let her put the dress on me, so that I did not mess it up or do it wrong. Then everyone else changed, while she did my hair and makeup. After that we went to a little chapel where she had made a reservation for us earlier that day. It was a fairly classy place; no Elvis impersonator or anything. Emmett and I had a simple ceremony and I looked into his eyes when I vowed to love him for the rest of my life, and he vowed the same in turn. Then we kissed and were married.

But we were on a tight schedule, so as soon as we were pronounced man and wife, Alice ushered us outside to make the next call to our parents. The sound of the heavy street traffic outside must have been convincing, because Mom and Dad never questioned that we were shopping in Seattle.

And then Emmett and I were back in our hotel room alone and married. I made love to him, soft, gentle and slow, doing it right this time. When we finished, I climbed up into his arms and let him hold me. "Was that how you wanted our first time to be Rus?" Emmett asked hugging me to his chest.

"Yes, that was perfect. Are you happy with it? You got sex, just like you wanted."

"Well there's one more thing I've always wanted to do, but you've never let me."

"What?" I asked surprised and confused. Sex was the last thing and now I was sure that we had done everything.

"You've never let me touch your pussy," he answered before kissing behind my ear.

"I've never even touched it, Emmett. It's not functional: it's just a blind little useless opening," I replied truthfully.

"How do you know that it isn't function if you've never tried it?"

"It doesn't even get wet. We just spent an hour making love and I just busted a nut, and it's still dry and I haven't felt as much as a tingle down there."

"Well we have lube to take care of dryness…"

"Why do you even want to touch it? Do you think you could penetrate me?" I asked thinking that maybe a vagina would not be so bad if Emmett could make love to me too.

"No, I don't have enough to do that. But it's part of you and I want to at least touch it once. If it hurts or you don't like it, we can stop," he offered holding up the lube.

"Okay, but only because I love you more than anything," I answered lying back on the bed and spreading my legs for him.

Emmett quickly moved to between my legs and licked my limp dick a few times before moving it out of the way. I was still sated from my recent orgasm, and although his tongue sent shivers down my spine, I would need more time before I would be able to get hard again. I felt Emmett tugging on my balls, lifting them up so that he could see my vagina. I barely had any pussy lips and my opening was only about an inch and a half deep, so I did not see how anyone could find it sexy, but Emmett thought that everything about me was sexy.

I felt him spreading my lips open and licking the smooth hairless skin down there. It was nice, but it was not as sensitive as my cock, or even my balls. Then Emmett pushed his tongue into my hole and the new sensation was more confusing to me than anything else. It did not make me hard again, but it did not hurt of feel unpleasant either. It was mostly just weird and slightly pleasant.

Emmett continued to lick my lips and thrust his tongue into my cunt for several minutes, before coming back up and asking, "Did you like it or do you want me to stop?"

"You can keep going. I'm still getting used to it," I answered.

"Good," Emmett replied with a smile on his face as he went to grab the lube.

Emmett and I did not normally need lubricant, because he made plenty of moisture for our activities, but we always kept a bottle close at hand just in case. He drizzled some onto his fingers before slowly entering me with just his index finger. "You really are tiny…" he said as he explored my vagina with his finger. "With a pussy this size, I keep thinking that if I just had another inch I'd be able to penetrate you."

"You have three fourths of an inch, go ahead and try. And if not, maybe you could try the testosterone shots."

"I don't want the shots: I want to have your babies. And it might seem weird, but I like my little penis," he replied shrugging.

"I like it too. Dad bought all of those teeny tiny condoms. We might as well try one, this is our honeymoon after all," I said grabbing one of the micro condoms from the brown paper bag we had brought with us. We had never used one before, but this seemed as good a time as any to try.

"What if I can't do it?" he asked looking into my eyes and I could tell that he was scared to try.

"You'll never know until you try. If it doesn't work, then it's no big deal, but at least we'll know," I reassured him, while opening up the micro condom. "Come here."

I pulled him up to me, so that I could reach his hard micro, before struggling to get the little condom on the tiny cock. The biggest problem seemed to be that there was more foreskin than cock, and it kept rolling back up and bringing the condom with it. But finally, he grabbed the base of his micro and held it still for me, and I got the condom on properly.

Then Emmett poured more lube onto his micro and positioned himself between my legs. I lifted my legs up to my chest, to give him better access, and held them there while he pushed into me. He did not have much to work with, but neither did I. I distinctively felt his head enter me, although I knew he was mostly head, so I was not expecting this to be the reverse of me making love to him.

"I feel it baby," I said as soon as I felt him enter me. "You did it!"

"I'm all the way in, but I don't know how I can thrust. If I pull out even a little, I'll be all of the way out again."

"Well, then pull out and put it back in over and over again. Do you like how it feels?" I asked him thinking about how it felt for me: okay, but not great. I just do not have enough sensation down there for it to be any comparison to normal sex.

"I'll try," he replied pulling back, causing his micro to pop back out. And then I felt him enter me again. He repeated the process a dozen more times. "I like it: you feel so tight around my micro, but my pussy is tingling begging for your cock."

"How about my fingers?" I asked reaching down to find his pussy. It was a bit awkward at this angle and I could not quite reach. "Can you try turning around baby?"

Emmett turned around, giving me access to his beautiful dripping wet pussy, but then he could not reach my pussy with his micro. I handed him a few pillows, which he placed under me, to adjust the angle, and then he entered me again. This time a felt a shudder run straight from my pussy to my cock, which suddenly sprang to life as I moaned.

"Em, I don't know what you're doing, but that feels really good," I moaned as he pulled out and entered me again. He seemed to be hitting a spot along the bottom rear of my opening, which was extremely sensitive, especially compared to the rest of the organ. "More."

Emmett pushed into me, right in that spot a few more times, before saying, "I wanna feel you with my fingers again. Why do you moan when I touch there, but nowhere else?"

"I don't know," I replied as I felt his finger enter me. But this time, instead of feeling around randomly, he went straight to my sensitive spot, causing me to scream out, "Emmett!"

"I think it's like a G-spot, but it's not where mine is at all. I can feel a little lump or something down here…"

I was too busy moaning and panting to reply, so I just let my eyes roll back in my head as he fingered me. He was pushing his index finger into me deeper than his tongue or his micro could reach, and I could no longer think as the tingling sensation took over my body. I reached down and stroked my weeping cock with my other hand, the one I was not using to finger Emmett's juicy pussy.

And only a few minutes later, I gave into the dual sensation and creamed all over Emmett's hand and sprayed my stomach with my own jizz. Emmett turned back around, so that we were face to face again, and entered me with his micro, fucking me through my orgasm. "That feels so good," he moaned and came in me. And now we really had done everything together.


	51. Chapter 50

Jasper's POV:

"Okay, just stick to your list Edward and remember that you'll have a good time with Eric, but stay away from Paul, John, and Phil. Got it?" Alice asked going over her plans for Edward's grand gay adventure with him for the third time.

"Yes, find Eric playing video games and hit on him because he's the only one here who's both my age and gay. Got it. I'll be fine Alice. But I'm the older brother, so technically I should be babysitting you and Jazz. Where are you going to be?" Edward asked.

"On the casino floor winning big. Slot machines, poker, and blackjack: you name it, Jazz and I'll be winning big on it tonight. With my visions, I'll be sure to keep us safe. And if you need us, Russell already lent us his cell, so just call Russell's number. But don't call Emmett's until after six thirty, because they'll be having sex," she replied.

"Okay. But you two better stay out of trouble," he warned. "Love you."

And then Edward gave us each a kiss on the cheek and a hug, before heading in the direction Alice had pointed him in. She even gave him a few maps with the main attractions circled, so he could not possibly get lost. And with Alice's list of where and when to be and who to talk to, he could not possibly fail to have a good time tonight.

"We're in the clear!" Alice exclaimed, hugging me as soon as Edward was out of sight. "Now we have to hurry to make our wedding."

"I can't believe all three of them bought your story Alice!" I replied excitedly as we walked towards the Elvis chapel that was on the other side of the casino.

We were still wearing our clothes from Emmett and Russell's wedding, so I would not need to change. And Alice had already had her wedding dress shipped directly to the chapel via an overnight service. She had sent her biological parents her dimensions along with a note explaining that we had gotten engaged and asking for a custom made wedding dress last month. She never had much contact with the biological parents; just the occasional sending of current photos and measurements. Her bio parents would then return a package full of the latest clothing cut perfectly for her. But even they were reluctant to send a fourteen year-old a wedding dress.

But Alice had seen that they would refuse her the dress if they thought she was getting married right away, so she included in her note that she had stopped growing and that the wedding was not going to be for another four years. She just wanted them to make the first version of the dress now, so that she could study it and return it with a list of corrections that would need to be made. The note said that she fully expect the process of getting the dress just right to take about three years and she wanted it out of the way so that she would be free to plan the rest of the wedding. Alice's bio parents had fallen for it and sent her the most gorgeous dress imaginable last week and Alice had shipped it off to Vegas yesterday to meet us here at the chapel.

"It's like I told you: Emmett and Russell were too busy thinking about their own wedding to notice that I just bought you a tux and a set of platinum wedding bans. And Edward's too busy thinking about the head I told him he was gonna get tonight from Eric to notice us either," she trilled as we walked quickly across the casino floor.

"Telling Russell that our rings were cover for his rings was genius Alice! I still can't believe that they bought that they were promise rings," I replied as we approached the chapel.

"Okay, you know the drill: you're eighteen year-old Jasper Whitlock and I'm eighteen year-old Alice Cullen. We're newly graduated high school sweethearts, just starting our freshman year at Washington State University. I just turned eighteen, so we headed down here to elope as soon as we could get away from the family. But there's a thirty-percent probability that no one will ask as long as we both look confident and in love," Alice instructed before reaching up for a final kiss.

I nodded and we went in. This place was corny and cheesy compared to the place we had taken Emmett and Russell to, but they were much closer to looking the ages on their ID cards and Alice was sure that no one would question them. That establishment was much stricter and would have noticed that Alice and I were only fourteen. This dive, however, would not even blink at our fake IDs and marry us without question.

Alice had told me last month after Bella moved back to town that there was a slight possibility that an opportunity for our wedding would open up soon, explaining why she had sent off her request for the dress. And last week she had informed me that there was a twenty percent chance that it would be today or else not for at least another year. Then last night she had flung herself into my arms and trilled the good news into my ear at the dance, "Emmett and Russell are fighting: our weddings are on!"

Once Russell danced with Leah and Emmett took off with Bobby, the odds of our wedding shot up to ninety-eight percent. And once they had done the dirty deed in the garage and were talking about marriage, Alice knew it was the perfect time to suggest the road trip that would end in two marriages for our family. And Alice's planning and preparations had really paid off, because the entire trip was going down exactly as she had predicted.

I was really excited about finally being married to the love of my life. I had known from the moment I set eyes on her that she was the one for me and I had never had any doubts in my love for her. The only rocky patch our relationship had ever hit was that time when I was eleven and Alice had rudely informed me of my vagina. I had been so mad that I had decided not to marry her just because I knew how much that would hurt her.

But as much as I wanted to hurt her, I knew that there was no one else for me, so if my plan was to work, I would have to decide to never marry anyone at all and to remain a virgin for the rest of my life. Given the news I had just received, those two decisions were not hard to make and Alice had been devastated. But I had eventually gotten over the fact that Alice had been the bearer of my bad news and visions of our future wedding had returned to her.

Alice said that our marriage was one of those things that were set in stone; the only variables were when, where, and how. We were both ecstatic that fate was choosing sooner rather than later and there was only one thing about it that bothered me. It bothered me that we were keeping this from our family. I wanted to share our happiness with them.

Emmett and Russell were keeping their marriage from Esme and Carlisle, while Edward, Alice, and I knew. But Alice had insisted that we would have to keep our marriage secret, not just from my aunt and uncle, but from our siblings as well. This was because Russell, Emmett, and Edward would not approve and would not go along with it if they knew.

It was apparently one thing to fly across the country so that a sixteen and seventeen year-old could get married, but a completely different thing for two fourteen year-olds to do so. We were just too young for our older siblings to get it, so we would have to keep our marriage a complete secret. And that meant distracting our siblings with their own lives so that we would be free to slip away unnoticed to the chapel.

We already had an appointment at the chapel and Alice had faxed in our paperwork last week, just in case, so we did not have to wait in the line or fill out anything, unlike the line full of drunks who frequented the casino and had suddenly thought that marrying their drinking partner was a good idea.

"Whitlock and Cullen for five O'clock. We already have our rings and all of our paperwork. We paid in advance," Alice was explaining to the receptionist at the desk as she checked us in.

"Ah, right this way: the photographer is ready for you and your dress is in dressing room number five. Once you're ready, go directly into the photo studio at the end of the hall," she replied leading us back to a portrait studio.

This place may have been a dive featuring an Elvis impersonator for a minister and cheesy red and pink hearts and wedding bell wallpaper, but they at least had all of the amenities. In fact, this chapel being located on the ground floor was the reason Alice had chosen this casino, because it would make it easier for us to get married without our siblings noticing.

Alice had ordered the largest photo package, so after she changed we spent half an hour taking photos, before it was our turn to go in front of the Elvis priest. It may not have been the most romantic setting and it was a bit rushed, but Alice and I had written our own vows, so it was still perfect for us.

"Jasper, I promise to love you for every moment of our forever, whatever our futures might bring. And I know that we'll weather the storms that are ahead for us, whether they be a pack of mangy wolves or an army of bloodthirsty vampires, with our love still intact. I will love you even when our blood runs cold and our bodies turn to stone. We will be together for all time, in life and in not, tied together by our undying and unyielding love," she spoke to me looking into my eyes.

And then it was my turn. "Alice, I have loved you since I first set eyes on you; maybe even before that. I did not know it then, but before we met, I was missing you, longing to have an Alice in my life to love. Our fates have been intertwined since birth. In fact, I think you were made for me, because I could not be allowed to exist in this world without you. I promise to love, honor, and respect you for as long as we both exist, and maybe then some," I vowed looking into Alice's deep brown eyes.

And then Elvis pronounced us man and wife and said, "You may now kiss the bride."

Alice reached up on her tip toes, and I leaned down and captured her soft perfect lips in mine, and then it was over and we were married. "I can't wait to make you mine back in our hotel room, but first we have to pose for the camera one last time: the cake shot," she whispered up to me. A photographer had taken several shots of us as we said our vows and I even heard the camera clicking as we shared our first kiss as a married couple.

We walked over to the cake table and each of us picked up a slice of cake. I grabbed a fork and cut a small piece, while Alice did the same. We then carefully fed each other the cake and smiled for the camera. There was none of the messy icing in each other's faces that there had been after Emmett and Russell's wedding.

And then we were handed and envelope full of photos from earlier and told to come back anytime tonight to pick up the ones from during the ceremony and after. "Come on my husband," Alice said taking my hand after thanking the people from the chapel. "We have love to make back in our room."

And then she was pulling me through the casino again, stopping to pull one slot machine just so that we could honestly say we had. She won five thousand dollars, but we would have to come back out here later and really hit up the roulette wheel if we were going to be able to pull of the "gambling all night" excuse. Our siblings would not believe that we had spent five hours gambling and only won five thousand; not with Alice's abilities that is.

And then we were in our room and Alice was pulling my clothes off of me. I quickly unzipped her white dress, but I was not sure what to do with the fancy lace underwear she was wearing. "It's just a corset Jazz," Alice said showing me how to untie the lace on the fancy garment.

And then we were completely naked and she was leading me to the bed. "Jasper, I can see that you want to go first, but you take longer. By the time you finish, I'm gonna have cum four times and be unable to reciprocate. But if I go first, it'll only last thirty minutes and then you'll be free to spend two hours making me scream your name. Is that okay with you?" she asked me with sparkling eyes.

We had had a lot of debates about this, mostly stemming from the fact that she had decided how this would go before I even knew I had a vagina. But it was hard to argue with Alice and I always caved anyway. Plus, I did not want to argue on our wedding day, so I nodded and let her lead me to the bed.

I lied down and spread my legs for her, hoping that it would not hurt too badly. We were both virgins and had been saving ourselves for this day, but I was only fourteen and therefore very nervous about being entered for the first time. "Relax Jazz, it'll be okay," she reassured me as she climbed in between my legs, condom in hand.

My aunt and uncle were pro-condom, not just because they did not want us getting pregnant so young, but also they did not want us sharing fluids. Alice and I had talked about this and we both agreed that since we were virgins and were never going to have sex with anyone else, ever, that it would be okay if we swapped fluids. Thus the only condom we were using today was a female condom on my vagina designed to keep her sperm out of me, so that we would not get pregnant.

Since Alice's urethra did not open at the tip of her penis, like normal males, her cum was released from the top of her balls and therefore, got everywhere. The only way to keep her sperm out of my vagina was to employ the female condom, which Alice opened and inserted into me. But since I was not producing sperm, and we were not concerned about STDs, there was no need for us to use a condom when I enter her later.

Alice sucked a few slurps on my penis, making sure I was hard and horny for her, before she poured some lube on her cock and entered me. She entered me slowly and it did not hurt at first, so when she asked, "Are you okay Jazz?" I nodded my head.

I was not enjoying myself as much as I do when she uses her fingers or her tongue, but I figured that was normal for a first time. The female condom felt weird and Alice was not hitting my G-spot yet and she was still going soft and slow. She knew just how to make me feel good with her fingers, but I figured it might take her some time to be able to do the same with her dick. Hopefully, I would be better at finding her P-spot with my dick when it was my turn.

Since Alice was biologically male, she did not have a G-spot, but her prostate was very sensitive and could be reached from her vagina. It was located along the bottom rear of her pussy, while my G-spot was in the middle along the top. I was very skilled at finding the sensitive glad with my fingers, but I could not reach it with my tongue, and I hoped that I would be able to get the right angle to hit it with my penis later.

So I was just lying there, taking Alice's cock, and thinking about what I needed to do later when it was my turn, when she sped up. But instead of it feeling better when she went faster, it felt worse and it started hurting. I did not want to ruin our honeymoon by stopping her when I did not know what was wrong, because I figured that I was just taking some time to get used to her.

I concentrated on keeping a blank look on my face and not cringing in pain, as Alice enjoyed herself. The more she enjoyed herself, the sooner this part would be over. I looked up and concentrated on her gorgeous face, not on the pain below my waist. Her eyes were closed and her face was scrunched up in concentration. Was she trying not to cum?

"Alice? Tell me how it feels," I begged, wanting information out of her, but trying not to give away my pain.

"You're so tight Jazz! You feel so good I wanna cum already. But I wanna make you feel good too," she panted, with her eyes still closed.

"I do feel good," I lied. "But I'm not anywhere close to cumming. I want to watch you cum: cum for me Alice."

"Okay Jazz," she agreed and I started thanking my lucky stars that Alice never could hold out that long.

But then Alice picked up the pace, losing her rhythm, as her orgasm approached. She was slamming into me deeper and all of the sudden there was a sharp pain in my lower abdomen. I screamed out in pain and Alice screamed out in ecstasy as she came. I felt her spraying her load onto the skin behind my vagina and I felt her cum dripping down my ass.

"Jasper, you're bleeding," Alice said looking down as she pulled out.

My hands went to my belly, to hold it as the pain continued, but I looked down to see what Alice was talking about. Sure enough, there was a lot of blood coming from my vagina. I had not been hard for a while now, and my limp dick was lying to one side, so I could clearly see the bloody condom, which Alice was pulling out of me: all of the blood was on the side that had been in contact with my vagina.

"I know they say that virgins sometimes bleed Jazz, but I wasn't expecting this much blood: you hardly even bleed when you're having a period," Alice said getting up to throw the condom away. It was true that my periods were always light, with only a few spots a day for two or three days before they were over, but this hurt more than a period too. "Are you in pain Jazz?"

"Yes," I answered gritting my teeth, trying to concentrate on Alice and not the horrible pain in my abdomen.

Alice's eyes glazed over as she was transported to the future in one of her visions. "Oh no!" she screamed. "I'll go get help!" And then Alice was running to the bathroom and coming back in the room with two robes. "Put this on so that no one sees you naked."

Alice helped me into the robe, despite the pain, and then put on her own robe, before grabbing the keycard and leaving. But she was only gone a minute before she came back with Russell and Emmett, both also wearing robes and rubbing their eyes as if she had just woken them up even though it was only seven in the evening.

"Jasper needs to go to the hospital. I need you two to call nine-one-one and tell them where we are and that he's bleeding a lot. I'm gonna use Russell's cell to call Dad and tell him what's happening," Alice barked out orders as I lay on the bed and tried not to cry. This was not how I wanted our honeymoon to end.

"Yes, I'm in room number six thirty-seven and my brother is bleeding a lot. We need an ambulance to come pick him up and take him to the hospital," Emmett said into the room phone with Russell by his side. It was easier to call for help from a land-line than a cell phone.

"Hi Dad, we have an emergency with Jasper," Alice spoke into Russell's cell. "He's bleeding a lot from his vagina." Pause. "No, we lied: we aren't in Seattle, we took a plane to Las Vegas, and there's no way we can bring him back. Russell and Emmett are calling nine-one-one right now." Pause. "No, I sent Edward out on a date earlier and he's not back yet. I called you first." Long pause. "No, it's not a period. I can see what it is but I don't want to say it over the phone." Pause. "No." Pause. "No." Pause. "Yes." Pause. "I don't know!" Pause. "Yes."

"Alice, they're sending help, but they want to talk to you about what's going on," Emmett interrupted Alice's conversation with my uncle.

"Fine, switch with me and explain to Dad that we went to Vegas to gamble and watch strip shows," Alice said, eyeing Emmett to make sure he knew not to blab on the wedding part, before switching phones with him.

"Help is on the way Jazz, you're gonna be okay," Russell said coming over to sit by me on the bed.

"Hi Dad, sorry I lied, but it was all Alice's idea and she made a road trip to Vegas sound like a good idea," Emmett spoke into the cell phone.

"Hello. Jasper and I are both intersexed. I was taking his virginity when he started bleeding from his vagina and is in a lot of pain. No, this is definitely not a period," Alice said into the hotel phone.

"We left last night after you left with Mom. We were together all morning, but then this evening we split up. Russell and I wanted to have sex in the hotel, while Edward was going to a gay club or something, and Alice and Jasper said they were going gambling. I'm sorry I wasn't watching them better," Emmett said. "I don't know, obviously not gambling like they said: they're both naked and wearing nothing but the hotel robes."

There was a lot of commotion in the room between the two sets of phone calls and then there was a loud knocking on the door, which only added to the commotion. Russell answered the door and let in a couple of EMTs. "It's my brother Jasper, over on the bed. He's bleeding so bad he bled right through his robe!" Russell exclaimed leading the three EMTs into the room.

And then there was a big man leaning over me and saying, "I need to open your robe so that I can see where you're bleeding from."

"Okay," I said untying the robe for him as a woman approached me as well.

"Jasper right?" she asked me and I nodded. "I just need to make sure you haven't lost too much blood. I'm going to check your vitals okay?"

"Sure," I answered.

There was not much I could do, so I just lied there in pain while the man examined my privates and the women checked my vitals. She flashed a light in my eyes, took my blood pressure, and checked my pulse, among other things.

"He hasn't lost too much blood yet," the woman concluded.

"He's bleeding a lot from down here and I can't determine a cause. Kevin, bring over the stretcher and let's take the kid in," the man said.

And then the other man was helping the first man transfer me to the stretcher and Emmett gasped saying, "Oh my Darwin! That's a lot of blood."

"The three of us need to ride with you because we don't have a car," Alice was saying grabbing Russell's hand and a bag of clothes and following us out the door.

"How old are you kids?" I heard the woman asked.

"I'm the oldest and I'm seventeen. But Jasper's only fourteen," Emmett answered.

"And where are your parents? Out gambling?" she asked another.

"No, they're back home in Washington State. We aren't supposed to be here. We lied about where we were going and I used a fake ID to get us through security at the airport and check us into the hotel," Emmett answered taking the blame. It was all Alice's idea, but admitting that he let his fourteen year-old sister arrange a trip out of State probably would not sound any better.

"Do your parents know where you are?" the lady asked as we all exited the casino and entered an ambulance.

"They do now: we just called them when we were calling you. But our other brother is still out and we haven't called him yet," Emmett answered.

"Here, everyone grab something and get dressed," Alice said opening up the bag of clothes she had brought. Most of the clothes were mine, but there was a pair of Alice's pajamas in the bag, which I saw Alice reach in and claim before tossing my pajama shirt and pants at Emmett. Russell then took the bag and retrieved one of my shirts and my jeans and the three of them changed from their robes in the ambulance right in front of the EMTs.

"Older brother?" the female EMT asked hopefully as my siblings got dressed.

"No, younger: Edward's sixteen," Emmett replied pulling my pajama shirt on. My pajamas were really loose on me, but were really tight on Emmett, and I was just surprised that he could get into them at all. Russell, on the other hand, was not much bigger than me so my clothes fit perfectly on him.

"And where did he go? Is he also using a fake ID?"

"Alice, where did Edward go?" Emmett asked.

"You can pick him up from hotel room number six hundred thirty-six at ten tonight," Alice answered.

"That's not what I asked," the lady replied.

"Well I'm the only one who knows where I sent my brother to get laid and I don't want you interrupting his night: I know that if I tell, you'll send a police car to pick him up and take him to the hospital," Alice replied.

"How old are you?" the lady asked.

"Alice is the youngest: she just turned fourteen last month and she really is the only one who knows where Edward went. Alice was in charge of planning the entertainment," Russell revealed as we drove off with the sirens blazing.

"And what exactly did she have planned for the four of you while your other brother was out?" the lady continued her questioning, probably wondering why we had all been wearing robes.

"She claimed that she and Jasper were just going to use their fake IDs to gamble," Russell answered.

"And we did: I won five thousand dollars at the slot machines before Jasper and I went back to the room," Alice defended our actions.

"That's it?" Russell asked incredulously. Although that amount of winnings might impress others, we all knew Alice should have brought home a lot more than that tonight.

"Well then we got horny and I took him back to the room to fuck," Alice replied shrugging, leaving out the marriage part completely.

"Wait, why were you too having sex if you are brother and sister?" the female EMT asked.

"We are all adopted and so none of us are related. Russell is boning Emmett and Jasper and I have been dating since we were little," Alice answered.

"So the only one who went out is the one who isn't having sex with one of his siblings?" she asked.

"Yep, pretty much," Alice answered as we arrived at the hospital.

"Well you can either tell us where your other brother is, or I can call a police officer to come down and question you until you do. But if you go with the second choice, you won't be able to go inside with Jasper," the EMT threatened.

"I'm the only one who knows what's wrong with him," Alice countered.

"Why would you know and not him?" she asked.

"I talked to our dad, the others didn't," Alice answered.

"Well lock up the girl and call the father," the male EMT said as they lowered my stretcher to the ground.

"They won't tell you our parent's phone number if you lock me up," Alice countered.

I missed the rest of the argument, because I was being wheeled into the emergency room, with Russell by my side. Then there was a nurse and a doctor asking me all kinds of questions that I did not know the answers to, like when my last menstrual cycle was. "What the Darwin is a menstrual cycle?" I asked in response.

"Just call my dad and get his history," Russell said pulling out his cell and calling my uncle.

Then the doctor was on the phone with Carlisle for half an hour before hanging up and coming back to me with his verdict. "Okay, I'm just gonna order a blood transfusion to counter the bleeding and some tests to confirm what your father said and then schedule you for a very simple surgery to fix the problem. You should be perfectly fine in a few days," the doctor said.

"Where's Alice?" I asked.

"Who's Alice?" the doctor asked in response.

"My girlfriend. I want her to be with me," I answered.

"Jazz, Alice and Emmett never got passed the EMTs. Alice told me that there was a high probably that they were gonna hold them for questioning by the police whether she told about Edward or not. She told me to stay with you for her," Russell said.

"Why?" I asked confused.

"Jasper, Alice planned this whole thing and you ended up in the hospital. She broke a lot of laws and Emmett's the oldest, so the two of them are gonna take the fall for this. They only let me stay with you because I was clueless and they felt sorry for you," Russell answered.

"Oh, okay. Get the test over with then," I told the doctor, feeling lost as to what I was supposed to do without my Alice.

The nurse first added a unit of blood to my IV and then took a urine sample before rolling me in for an ultrasound. Then she returned me to the room, and Russell stayed by my side the whole time. A few minutes later, the doctor came back in and said, "Your father was correct: you're having a miscarriage Jasper."

"A what?" I asked confused and Russell squeezed my hand.

"You were pregnant, but the placenta tore away from the lining of the uterus. I'm sorry, but it was too early in the pregnancy for us to be able to do anything to save the baby," he answered.

"How could I be pregnant? Alice and I just had sex for the first time tonight?" I asked confused.

"Well, your father explained Alice's condition to me, and that her sperm consequently gets all over the place. You two must have had an accident when fooling around about two months ago. Your father told me that your period was late, but that's usual for you and you were still a virgin, so he didn't test you yet. But your urine tested positive for pregnancy and your ultrasound showed a pregnancy with a placental tear," he explained.

"Okay," I answered numbly, the news not really sinking in.

"So we're just going to remove the embryo in a simple surgery. You'll continue to bleed for about a month, but not so much. It'll be more like a period than this free flowing stream you're having now. And since Alice is the father, I'm going to request that the police let her in to be with you while you have the surgery. Okay?" he asked.

"Yes, please get her for me," I begged. I did not know what to do, but Alice would.

"I'll try. And the nurse here is going to prep you for surgery. I'll come back to talk to you when you wake up," he said before leaving.

It was fifteen minutes later and I was beginning to think Alice was not going to make it for my surgery when she finally entered the pre-op room. "How are you doing Jazz?" she asked me calmly.

"Not so good: I lost our baby," I answered trying not to cry.

"It's my fault Jazz. I should've seen the baby or the miscarriage, but I completely missed it. I'm so sorry," she replied taking my hand and crying.

"It's not your fault Alice," I said squeezing her hand as I lost it and started to cry too.

But they were already about to start my surgery, so the anesthesiologist came in only a minute later and put me under. When I woke up, the pain was still there, but I was in a regular hospital room. Alice was with me, by my side, and holding my hand. "It's over Jazz," she said looking into my eyes. "You're gonna be okay. I love you so much and I don't know what I would've done if I would've lost you."

"You'll never loose me," I answered squeezing her hand and missing the baby I had not even known we had until it was too late.


	52. Chapter 51

Jasper's POV:

Alice stayed with me in the hospital all Saturday night and my aunt and uncle arrived around noon the next day. "How're you feeling Jazz?" Carlisle asked me when he arrived. I could see my aunt and my siblings waiting outside the door to get a chance to see me.

"It still hurts," I admitted groggily. They had given me something for pain, which was making me more sleepy than it was taking away the pain.

"It's going to hurt for a while Jazz. How are you feeling about the miscarriage?" he asked me with a grave look on his face.

"Upset. I didn't know we were pregnant, honest. But to know that I had Alice's baby and now she's dead…" I trailed off.

"Would you want to keep it if you could?"

"Yeah…" I admitted. "I like the idea of having her baby, just not the idea of having the vagina."

"Well you two can try again when you're older. You didn't do anything wrong: not even flying across the country, gambling, or the sex should have hurt the baby. But you were young and sometimes these things just happen."

"Are we in trouble?" I asked, caring more about what would happen to Alice than myself.

"For getting pregnant, no. It was an accident and you couldn't help that. I've been thinking about putting you and Emmett on birth control, but with your atypical anatomies, I wasn't sure what would happen. But with condoms, there's always going to be a risk of another accident."

"I meant about Vegas," I replied ignoring the part about birth control: I was not ready to think about that yet.

"Well you aren't, but Alice, Emmett, Edward, and Russell are grounded," he answered.

"I went too," I reminded him. I wanted to say, "Alice lost our baby too," but I could not bring myself to say it out loud.

"Your punishment's going to be extra therapy so that you can talk about the miscarriage," he explained knowing that I hated therapy more than anything.

"I'd rather be tied up in the basement, starved, and bitten by rabid wolves," I replied numbly.

"I know. But finding out that you had a miscarriage is a traumatic experience Jasper. You need to deal with it so that you don't sink back into another depression," he said.

Ah, so that is what they were all thinking: that I was depressed and going to try to hurt myself again. Would I never live that down? I turned my head to face Alice and said, "I'm tired," hoping to end this conversation.

"You can rest Jazz. We can wait to talk to you," she replied squeezing my hand.

"The others just want to come in and say hello real quick before they go back to the hotel room," Carlisle replied.

I was curious about what happened last night with the cops, so I nodded my head. My uncle ushered everyone else in and they all took turns offering their condolences and telling me that they wanted me to get better so that they could take me back home with them. But my aunt and uncle were still in the room, so I figured that it was not the best time to ask about last night.

"Thanks, but I'm still really sleepy, so I'll talk to you later," I said cutting the condolences short.

"Okay, I'm just going to leave Alice with you and I'll be in the doctor's lounge if you need me," Carlisle said before ushering my family back out.

As soon as they left, Alice closed the door, and came to sit by my bed to answer my questions. "We're all staying in the same rooms in the casino, except Edward is sharing my room with me and Mom and Dad are taking Edward's room. We were supposed to check out this morning, but Mom talked to the front desk and got our stay extended. She even put it on her card, because mine was almost maxed out already."

"What about Edward?" I asked.

"He went back to Eric's room and they exchanged blowjobs. He was heading back to his own room when the cops found him and asked if he was Edward Cullen. Then he was taken to meet Emmett and Russell down at the police station. The three of them were held there over night until Mom and Dad came and got them when their plane got in. No charges were filed, but they were told to never do it again and we all got our fake IDs taken away."

"They had to stay at the police station?" I asked incredulously.

"Yep, because we had no adult to take care of us and the hospital said that only one of us could stay with you. The cops wanted to hold me because I was the mastermind and let Russell stay with you; something about his boobs and the ID saying he was a girl made the cops want to go easy on him. But the doctor said that since I was the father of your baby, they wanted me to stay. The cops are having a bit of a laugh at our expense: it's not every day that the girl knocks up the boy."

"How much trouble are you in for planning it?"

"Not much. I'm grounded for the rest of my life. But really it'll only last two months because you'll be bummed about not being able to take me out on a date. As soon as my grounding starts to affect your life, it'll end, because they feel really sorry for you and are worried about your depression coming back."

"And the others?"

"Russell and Emmett got six months each, because Mom and Dad figured out that they were the ones I convinced to take us. Edward got only three months for going along with it."

"What about the weddings?" I asked wondering if any of us had been found out.

"No one knows about our wedding. I went back to the chapel to get the remaining photos and hid them all. Edward, Russell, and Emmett are all still keeping their mouths shut about the other wedding. I think Emmett will blab in about six months, in which case he and Russell will end up getting their groundings extended, but we're safe."

"They weren't suspicious that we all decided to lose our virginities on the same day?" I asked incredulously.

"Nope. Russell and Emmett said that they had lost theirs Friday night after the dance, before we talked them into a road trip. And I told Mom and Dad that we decided to take advantage of the plush hotel room to have sex. I said that it was my idea and I talked you into it. Plus we never did get around to losing the other virginity…"

"I don't want to anymore," I replied thinking about how awful sex the first time had been. Not only had I not liked it, but it had resulted in a miscarriage.

"I know. But when you do feel like it again, we'll start with the other way around. I'm just so scared that this'll happen again that I don't think I ever want to enter you again," she replied looking me in the eyes.

"I know," I replied. "But I want our baby back."

"Me too Jazz, me too," she said holding me and we both started to cry again; I fell asleep like that.

I woke up a few hours later when I heard whispering in my room. I opened my eyes and saw that Alice and my uncle were talking. Alice looked over at me first and said, "Hey sleepy head. Did you have a nice nap?"

"I thought you were sleeping with me?" I asked in reply.

"Nope, but I was lying with you until ten minutes ago when I saw that you were getting close to waking up: you have to pee, so I got Dad," she answered.

"Do you feel like trying to get up and use the restroom?" Carlisle asked me.

"I guess," I answered thinking about the pain being mostly emotional and that I probably could make it to the toilet.

Once Carlisle finished helping me to the bathroom, he helped me back into the bed and I noticed that Alice was unusually giddy. "What is it Alice?" I asked, as I could not possibly fathom why she would be anxious and bordering on excited when I felt so horribly.

"Our baby: Dad can take us to see it if we beg," she revealed.

"Is that true Carlisle? I can see her? I'd really love to see her just once," I replied, my spirits lifting. Even if she was gone, at least I would be able to set eyes on her this one time. Losing my baby without ever getting to see her just made the whole experience seem surreal, like it had not really happened. But if I had a chance to see her, then that might bring me some closure.

"Yes, that's possible. But there's not much to see: you were eight weeks pregnant, so the embryo was only thirteen millimeters long," he answered and I started doing the math and trying to figure out how big my baby was. I knew that was a small measurement, but I was a little too groggy to do the calculation and math was not my best subject. Carlisle picked up on my confusion and clarified, "About half an inch."

Although half an inch was quite small, it was more than visible with the naked eye, so I replied, "I'll take it. Can we go see her now?"

I felt concern coming from Carlisle as he sat in the chair next to my bed. "Jasper, I'm worried that you might have unreasonable expectations for what you're going to see. You keep calling it a girl and referring to it in the present tense. It was too soon to tell the gender and it was dead before they removed it," he told me sadly.

"I know that she's dead, but I just have a feeling that she was a girl," I replied shrugging. "I just want a chance to see her and hold her and know that she was real." By the end, tears were falling from my eyes and I was trying not to cry.

"Dad, isn't there a way to test the cells to see if it was a boy or girl?" Alice asked.

"Yes, but there really is no point other than just to know. And it would defile the embryo to do so: I was going to ask you two to authorize cremation," he replied.

Alice did not reply, but looked off into space with her eyes glazed over in another vision; sometimes all she needed to see was to know what decision she should make.

"She was a girl Jazz," she announced smiling at me.

"Will you take us to see our daughter now?" I asked looking up at Carlisle.

"Yes, just let me make a few arrangements and grab a wheelchair," he replied before leaving the room.

Carlisle was back ten minutes later with a wheelchair and Alice held my hand as he wheeled us through the hospital. The room we arrived in looked like an operating room, because it was sterile and everything was surgical steel. There was one long surgical steel table in the middle and sitting on it was a lone cardboard box.

"You both need to put some gloves on," Carlisle said passing gloves to both me and Alice. "I'm going to put the embryo in Jasper's hand and then I can take a few pictures of you two holding her if you'd like."

"Yes, we would like," she answered and we both put the gloves on. I tried not to look at the box, so concentrated on Alice; she was my strength. "You're gonna be fine Jazz."

"When I talked to the doctor on the phone, I informed him that I was both your legal guardian and your physician and that I'd want to take a look at the embryo, so he was extra careful in removing her: she's perfectly intact, which is really rare," Carlisle said as he walked back over to us and placed a tiny clear ball with a pink center in my glove clad hands. "The clear fluid is the embryonic sac and you can see the embryo inside."

I lifted my hand to eye level and looked at the little ball. I could clearly see a little pink head, although it took up about a third of the embryo and had a squarish look to it. There were two dark spots visible for the eyes, but what I kept coming back to was the little arms and legs, each with the digits just visible. Looking at those little fingers and toes was just heart breaking and I could feel Alice beginning to lose her control, even though she was normally the strong one.

"She's perfect Alice," I said holding our baby up for her to see.

Alice and I silently stared at our daughter for several minutes while my uncle took several photos with a hospital camera.

"Was there ever any future where we got to keep her?" I broke the silence, crying as the tears flowed freely from my eyes.

"No. By the time I saw her she was already gone. I think this may've been another one of those times when there was just nothing I could've done to change the future," she replied crying as well.

"Will you take a close-up of her?" I asked Carlisle holding out my hand.

He nodded and came over to take one of just my hand, but he pretty much just stayed quietly in the room with us and took a few more pictures as Alice and I mourned our daughter.

We stayed for half an hour longer, until Alice broke the silence. "Mom's on her way back with the others."

After that, Carlisle took our daughter back into his hands and I keep my back to the box so that I would not see. "We can have her cremated. There's not much of her, but all of the placental tissue and the box itself will add to the amount, so you'll have some ash to scatter. How does that sound?" Carlisle asked.

"We don't have any other options with an embryo of this age," Alice replied knowingly.

I just nodded and Carlisle took us back to my room to sign some paperwork. "Normally they would just cremate the remains and not return the ashes to the parents, but since I'm a doctor, I won't have any problem getting the ashes for you two before we leave," he said as Alice signed the last signature.

After that, Carlisle left and came back five minutes later with my aunt and siblings, each of whom was carrying a vase of flowers.

"We brought you some flowers Jasper," Emmett said as he entered, placing a vase of red tulips on the end table to my right.

"We were all crying all day without you in the hotel," Russell said setting down a vase of yellow and peach colored roses next to Emmett's tulips.

"Yeah, this sure turned out to be the suckiest vacation ever," Edward said setting a vase of white carnations on the table to my left.

"I thought a few flowers might cheer up the mood in here Alice," Esme said handing her a vase of pink lilies.

"Thanks Mom," Alice replied hugging her, before getting up and placing the lilies on a table under the television.

"Carlisle, can you show them the pictures you took?" I asked. "Alice saw that she was a girl."

"I can arrange it," Carlisle replied, but did not leave the room to do so. Instead he stayed in the room and took Esme into his arms.

"I would have loved to have a niece," Russell replied, with Emmett standing behind him and squeezing his shoulder.

"Me too," Emmett and Edward both replied simultaneously.

"When your father and I found out that we couldn't have babies of our own, we said that it'd be okay, because someday one of you would give us grandbabies," Esme said tearing up in Carlisle's arms. "I wish with all my heart that this would've ended with a healthy granddaughter."

We talked for another ten minutes before Carlisle went to borrow a laptop, which he downloaded the pictures onto and showed our family. It was too soon for me to look again, so I declined the laptop when it came around, but once everyone had seen and there was not a dry eye in the place, I asked, "She was beautiful, wasn't she?"

"Absolutely Jazz," Alice replied immediately.

"Gorgeous," Russell answered.

"Perfect," Emmett added.

"Tiny," Edward said.

"My first granddaughter," Esme added.

"Mine too," Carlisle replied.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Sorry about the tear jerker; I wrote this the day my tear ducts gave out and I just wanted to test to see if I could still make even one tear. Unfortunately, the answer was no, although I was crying tearless sobs. Did anyone else shed a tear for Jasper and Alice for me?<p> 


	53. Chapter 52

Russell's POV:

Emmett and I had flown halfway across the country and gotten married using fake IDs and no one except for our three younger siblings knew. And we had even almost gotten away with it without getting caught; we would have made it back home with no one the wiser if it had not been for Jasper. But our selfish actions had resulted in my baby brother having a miscarriage and so Emmett and I felt horrible.

To think that my wedding had resulted in the death of my niece made me feel incredibly guilty and I was not the only one. Emmett, Edward, and I had to spend a lot of time stuck in that hotel room while Jasper and Alice were in the hospital. The whole thing had been Alice's idea, but still, we were the older, wiser, and more mature siblings who had gone along with it. And we were the ones who had had a good time, while they were the ones suffering.

Emmett and I felt guilty because we had gone along with the Vegas trip to get married, while Edward felt guilty because he had gone along with it to have a good time. Edward had been the one who went out all night. He had gambled, gone to a strip club, picked up a cute boy, gone to a night club, and even gotten lucky. It seemed that Edward had been the one to have the typical Vegas experience.

And while Emmett, Edward, and I had all gotten something we wanted out of this trip, Jasper had been the one to suffer. He had not even wanted to do anything in Vegas: he was just going along with Alice. Alice wanted to gamble and have sex in a fancy hotel room. She had planned the whole thing and now Jasper was the one paying the price. And so we all felt just a little bit mad at her even though she too had lost a baby.

So when Dad came back to the hotel room Wednesday night and announced that Jasper was finally well enough to go home, we were all relieved that this whole awful trip would finally be behind us. Maybe back in Forks, when we had our little brother home with us, we would come to feel a little better about what had happened. Maybe our family dynamics would return to normal and we would someday no longer look to Alice to blame for this fiasco. Maybe Jasper would be okay.

The seven of us flew home from Vegas on Thursday, grateful that Jasper was now recovered enough to endure the flight. But we were all grounded, so Mom and Dad put Emmett, Edward, Alice, and me back in coach, while Jasper got to ride up in first class with them. For some reason having a miscarriage got him out of any culpability associated with our road trip and even got Alice demoted from evil mastermind of the trip to the grieving father who was only in slightly more trouble than the rest of us.

"Get ready for school tomorrow: Edward, Emmett, and Russell, you're going," Mom said sternly as we arrived back home.

"Alice can stay home with Jasper the entire time, because the townsfolk are going to think she was the one who had the miscarriage," Carlisle added, pulling luggage out of the car.

"That's so not fair that Alice is getting off unpunished," I grumbled to Emmett as we each grabbed our luggage and took it upstairs.

"She's grounded for life and she lost a baby too," he reminded me with a kiss. "Meet me in my room when you finish unpacking?"

"Sure, and I know you're right, but it just seems like you and I got all of the blame while it was all Alice's idea," I replied setting my luggage just inside my bedroom door.

"She's regretting it now," Edward said coming up the stairs behind us with his own luggage. "If she hadn't suggested the road trip, they'd still have that baby right now. Dad said that Jasper's period was late and that if it hadn't come by this week, he was going to give him a pregnancy test even though they were still virgins. So if we had gone only a week later, they would have already known about the baby."

"I still have trouble imaging how they got pregnant before having sex," I said as Emmett put his luggage inside his room before coming back to where Edward and I were talking.

"It's the hypospadias," Edward replied taking his luggage inside his room and Emmett and I followed. "Dad showed me some pictures of the different types. Alice has the most severe type, which is why she pees sitting down and her sperm doesn't even come out of her penis. I don't think that there's any way to put a condom over it, so it probably goes everywhere. I bet one of them got it on their hands during foreplay and then touched Jasper without washing."

"Wow, you sound just like Dad," Emmett replied.

"Yeah, I could've sworn that was one of Dad's safe sex talks," I teased.

"Yeah, well I get a lot of them and I listen because I want to be a doctor too. I've had the most sexual partners, so that means more sex talks," Edward said.

"Wait, technically you only went all the way with Jacob, while I now have two notches on my belt," I replied but regretted it when I saw the hurt look on Emmett's face. Was he upset that I had slept with Bella or that I was objectifying him? "You know I love you Em, right?"

"Come here," he replied taking me into his arms and kissing me, so I figured whatever the issue was, it was not a big deal.

"Ew! No heterosexual kissing allowed in this room. Please take it back to your own rooms," Edward said ushering us from his room.

"Since when are we heterosexuals?" I retorted, resisting being thrown from his room.

"Since you had heterosexual sex last weekend. Yuck!" Edward replied cringing.

I could tell he wanted to mention our heterosexual marriage that we had also had last weekend, but kept quiet for fear of being overheard by our parents, although they probably were still downstairs with Jasper and Alice. Because of Jasper's condition, he was trading rooms with Alice so that he could be on the ground floor and not have to walk upstairs. My parents would probably let Alice stay down there with him through the night, just because sex was not an option for them at the moment.

After being kicked out of Edward's room, Emmett and I put our stuff away before going to his room to make-out. But the next day Edward, Emmett, and I found ourselves back in school trying to explain where we had been all week. Mr. Banner in first period was the first to ask.

"We went to La Vegas without our parents' permission and got thrown in jail when we got caught," Edward answered.

That short answer was enough information for _everyone_ to realize that we had had quite the adventure, so although Mr. Banner quickly changed the subject, the other kids continue to ask for details all day. This was not the first time that our family was the center of attention, so we stuck together and tried to doge all questions until lunch, when we would have Emmett with us. That way, the whole school could hear and we could get it over with all at once.

We were ready when Henry came over to our lunch table and asked, "Hey where's Jasper? Did he go to La Vegas and get thrown in jail too?"

We had all been hoping the subject of Jasper and Alice would not come up, because no one wanted to be the one to say it. But Henry was Jasper's best friend, so I spoke up and replied, "Yes, Jasper and Alice went to Vegas with us. And they were the reason we got caught: Alice was pregnant and had a miscarriage so we had to take her to the hospital. They never got taken to the police station; it was just the three of us."

"They were pregnant?" Henry asked still in shock from the news. "I'm so sorry…Can I come over and see them tonight?"

"I don't know; you'll have to ask Dad. They barely just checked out of the hospital yesterday, which is why we were unable to fly back until then when we left on Friday and were arrested Saturday," I answered.

"Give him Jazz's new cell phone number," Emmett suggested pulling out a piece of paper and a pencil from his backpack. "Jasper was going to get a cell for his birthday in January anyway, but our parents caved and got him the phone early, because during the emergency he had to borrow Russell's phone to call for help on."

"Did they get Alice one too?" Henry asked taking the proffered piece of paper from Emmett.

"No, Alice planned the whole trip, so she's in trouble despite the miscarriage. Mom and Dad didn't want to reward her with a cell when they're trying to be strict with her," I answered.

"Yeah, but it's really hard to be strict with someone who just lost a baby," Edward added.

"Tell them that I'm so sorry for their loss and I'm gonna call later," Henry said before going to sit with his girlfriend at a nearby table.

Everyone overheard our conversation and had gathered around to listen by the time Henry walked away. "Alice really had a miscarriage?" Lauren asked for clarification.

"Yep," I replied.

"That's so sad," Bella replied from Tyler's side and everyone else murmured their ascent.

"What were you all doing in Vegas?" Mike asked taking a seat at our table.

"Russell and I lost our virginities on Friday after the dance and Alice suggested a road trip to celebrate, gamble, and made love in fancy hotel rooms," Emmett answered.

"And Edward even found some local tail while we were there," I added, making my brother blush.

"Hey, how did Alice and Jasper get pregnant?" Bobby asked butting into our conversation. Like I said, the entire school was listening. "I thought that they were virgins and your parents are big on the condoms."

"They were virgins, until recently," Edward admitted, but left out the part about how they had gotten pregnant before losing their virginities; no one here, not even Bella, knew about Alice's hypospadias or that she had a dick, plus the real answer was just to complex. "And they had an accident."

"And they hadn't even realized that they were pregnant until they were in the hospital having the miscarriage, otherwise we never would've gone," Emmett added.

"Way to go Jasper! Alice's hot!" a kid named Tom exclaimed and his sentiment was accompanied by a round of hoots from the rest of the guys.

"Wait, how did you all get all the way to Nevada so quickly without your parents noticing?" Eric asked changing the subject to a less demeaning one.

"Alice had Fake IDs for all of us and a credit card. Like I said, she had it all planned," I answered.

"Did you guys get to drink and gamble while you were there?" Jessica asked.

I was so grateful for the subject change that I jumped at it, hoping to get more people to ask questions based on our own adventures, not on the tragedy that had befallen our family. "None of us had IDs saying that we were twenty-one, so we couldn't drink. And we were going to gamble Sunday morning before catching a plane back, but instead the police held us until our parents came and after that we had no fake IDs and had to stay in the hotel room or at the hospital the rest of the time," I answered. "Edward, what did you do Saturday night before you got caught?"

"Well, I wasn't with everyone else when the miscarriage happened and these losers didn't have the decency to call me and tell me. So first I went to a strip club and watched an early show. Then I took a break to play some video games at the arcade and ran into this boy my age named Eric, no relation to our Eric here," Edward said looking up at the boy at our school also named Eric.

"Then what happened?" Mike asked, eager for more details, despite the fact that he was straight and this story was bound to be a gay love-fest.

"Well Eric and I played a few video games, but he couldn't gamble because he didn't have a fake ID. So I took him over to a few slot machines and let him pull the lever for me: we lost five dollars. Then I took him to a gay night club across the street and we danced together for a couple of hours, before going back to his hotel room. His parents were still out gambling and he didn't expect them back until well after midnight, when it was only eight," Edward said pausing at the juicy bit.

"And?" Tyler asked, urging him for more.

"We exchanged blowjobs, but Alice had said to be back at our hotel room by ten, so that we could go over our planned phone call to our parents explaining why we were not coming home Saturday night. When I got off the elevator on my floor, the hallway was full of casino security and even a few actual cops. As I walked down the hall, one of the cops stopped and asked me my name.

"As soon as I confirmed that I was the missing Cullen kid, they took me into custody. Not only had these two knuckleheads not called me, but they had refused to tell the cops where I would be. The cops said they had been looking for me for hours and that my little brother and sister were in the hospital, so I went with them to the station, where I found Emmett behind bars and Russell lying on a couch.

"Apparently, since Alice was unavailable to take the fall, Emmett was getting all of the blame as the oldest. The cops were really pissed at me because I had been off having a good time with a fake ID while they had been wasting their time searching for me, so they put me in an interrogation room. But after telling the cops that I had no idea what happened and that all I had done was go to the exact places on Alice's list and play video games with another boy, the cops were forced to admit that the fourteen year-old in the hospital really was the mastermind behind it all. After that, they let me share Russell's couch for the night, but they watched us like a hawk," Edward finished.

"What about Emmett? Did you have to spend the entire night behind bars?" Bella asked.

"Sure did. But there was a cot in the cell for me and Larry, my cell mate, didn't smell too bad," Emmett replied shrugging.

"Emmett's seventeen, while Edward and I are only sixteen. Alice said that Emmett was going down no matter what, but if we all blamed her and him, Edward and I would get slightly better treatment. So Emmett was our hero and spent the night behind bars for us," I replied. "But I was so scared that that big man in his cell was gonna hurt him or something."

"Larry was cool," Emmett replied. "He asked me what I was in for and when I said I was seventeen and used a fake ID to take all of my underage siblings gambling for the weekend, he said that was 'righteous," of me. Then he spent the rest of the time talking about how he had been busted for being drunk on the streets and that they were gonna let him out in the morning."

"Still, none of us has ever spent the night behind bars," Mike replied. "That's pretty bad-ass."

"Totally," Tyler agreed and then the guys all gave Emmett a round of fist bumps.

"Did you guys get to do any shopping or see any shows while you were there?" Jessica asked.

"Russell and I bought promise rings," Emmett said holding up our entwined hands to show my wedding ring and kissing it, while holding his out to show the others. "Jasper and Alice got some just like these too."

"Congratulations!" Bella exclaimed. She was the first to respond.

"So what, Russell wouldn't sleep with you until you promised to marry him?" Bobby asked scathing mad at this new development. Obviously he had figured out that Emmett and I were back together, but he must not have noticed the rings. He probably would be much more upset if he knew about our marriage.

"Thanks Bella," I replied.

"Sorry for using you like that Bobby," Emmett said shrugging. "I honestly didn't know it was gonna turn out like that."

As soon as the words were out of Emmett's mouth, there was a round of gasps from most of the students. There seemed to be only a dozen or so kids that already new Bobby was gay. "What? Didn't you see Bobby making out with my boyfriend at the dance?" I asked incredulously, not in the least bit concerned about outing the prick that had tried to still my man.

A few of the people who had not gasped nodded that they had seen it, but pretty much everyone else shook their heads and broke out into conversations about what they had missed. "We were probably making out when that happened," I heard Jessica say to Mike.

The bell rang before the cafeteria quieted back down again, so we were saved from answering more questions by the bell. Edward and I did our best to avoid additional questions for the rest of the day, and we ran straight to the car after school ended. Luckily, Emmett had the same idea, and was already waiting for us, so we took off before anyone could get any more questions in.


	54. Chapter 53

Jasper's POV:

I was a little frightened of going back to school after the miscarriage. My aunt and uncle let me stay home an additional three weeks until I stopped bleeding, so I was out a total of four weeks. Edward and Russell had brought home my school work for me, so I was not behind and I was not worried about catching up missed work in my classes; it was facing all of the other kids I was worried about.

My siblings had announced the miscarriage to the entire school, although they had claimed Alice had had it. Honestly, I did not know if I was ready to face everyone yet, especially because of what I knew was being sad about me behind my back. Not only did I have three brothers that went to the same school, but my best friend Henry also came over and filled me in on all of the gossip.

Henry wanted to stop by right away when I got back from Las Vegas, but I stalled him for a week and a half before letting him come over. Just because he knew about my vagina, did not mean I wanted him to know that it had been my body that had carried my baby. And if I had let Henry over right away, he would have noticed that I was the one who had just had surgery, not Alice.

So I had refused to see Henry until a week and a half ago, but once I let him over he just kept coming back: he had stopped by to check on me every day since, because he said he was worried about me. He probably thought that I was depressed again; he was even here last night.

But Henry coming over to check on me was my best source of untainted information, because I knew my siblings were not telling me the whole truth. Edward and Russell kept swearing that the whole the Cullens went to Vegas and had a miscarriage thing had all blown over weeks ago. But even if it had blown over for them, it did not mean that it had blown over for me. No one from school had even seen me or Alice since before it happened, so there was bound to be questions.

I really wanted to know what was being said about Alice and me at school, so that I would be prepared to hear it when they say it to my face. So Sunday night, when Henry came over I requested, "Hey man, tell me what the other kids are saying about the whole miscarriage thing."

"Well everyone feels really sorry for your loss," he replied with the same answer Russell, Edward, and Emmett had been giving me.

"Yeah, but besides that. What else are they saying?" I asked trying to get more information out of him.

"You don't want to know."

"Henry, I'm going back to school tomorrow and I want to be prepared. Please tell me," I begged.

"Okay, everyone is asking about how you all got the fake IDs. There's a lot of speculation whether it was just Emmett and Edward with fakes or if all five of you had fakes. Both Emmett and Edward admitted having fakes, and pretty much everyone assumes Russell must have had one too. But everyone is curious if you and Alice also had fakes."

"Yeah, all five of us had fakes, but so what? Why does it matter if Alice and I had them too?" I asked confused.

"Because the others are all sixteen and seventeen and much closer to eighteen. You and Alice are only fourteen: it just sounds worse for two fourteen year-olds to have fakes," he replied shrugging.

"Okay. Is that all?"

"Well there's also a lot of gossip as to where the cards came from…your brothers already admitted that they got them from Alice."

"Yeah, Alice made them. So what?"

"Well making fake IDs is a strange hobby for a fourteen year-old girl to have. And they got you through airport security, so they must've been good. Everyone either thinks she learned how to do it from professional forgers or she bought them. Also, everyone plans on asking her for fakes of their own."

"She's already in trouble for letting Russell, Emmett, and Edward have the first set of fakes; there's no way she's gonna risk getting in trouble again by handing out more fakes."

"Okay, well there's also speculation on if you all have more fakes. If Alice made them once, she can make them again, right?"

"Well, don't tell anyone, but Alice gave me another fake to carry in my wallet just in case," I replied pulling out my wallet and showing him the fake.

"This looks real," he said examining my ID card. "Alice made this?"

"Yep. She has a few more fakes, but she's not gonna risk giving them to Russell, Emmett, and Edward again anytime soon."

"But why does she make them? Is she planning another road trip?" Henry asked curiously.

"No, we aren't going anywhere else. She hasn't made any new ones since before Vegas, but she made a few extras before we went. You know, for practice to make sure they looked right. And the only reason she made them in the first place was so that we could go to Vegas: she has wanted to go for years," I answered truthfully.

"Well that's what pretty much all the kids I know are saying. I can't wait until you come back to school tomorrow. It's really boring without you there."

"Thanks. If the ID cards are all they're talking about, I should be able to handle it," I replied.

After that Henry and I watched the football game that I had TiVoed, before he had to go. And the next morning, the five of us all piled in Edward's car and went to school.

"You can do this Jazz," Alice said giving me a peck on the cheek before heading off to her own class.

"Come on Jazz, Edward and I'll be with you the whole time," Russell said after kissing Emmett goodbye.

The three of us walked in to our first period AP Biology II class and took our usual seats. I sat at the end of the row, with Edward and Russell in the two seats in front of me, but there were other kids to both my right and left.

"Hey Whitlock! You're back!" Lee Stephens, the boy to my right, greeted me.

"Yeah," I replied timidly. Lee and I were not really close, but in a tiny school like this where we had all been going to school together forever, everyone knew everyone else.

"Congrats on getting laid," he replied.

"What?" I asked confused.

"Well you must've nailed Alice in order to have knocked her up," he replied shrugging.

I really was not expecting this response, so I lost it a little. "Alice and I lost a baby and you're congratulating me?" I asked incredulously.

"I thought you were just milking that to stay home for a month," he replied shrugging. "It's not like you were the one who had the miscarriage."

I wanted to shout at him that it had indeed been me in the hospital bleeding after losing that baby, but I knew that I had a cover to keep. So instead, I seethed, "That was _my_ baby that died and I wanted her."

"Aren't you like only thirteen or something?" he asked in response.

"Fourteen."

"Lay off of him Stephens," Russell said coming to my defense. "Just because you're a virgin and don't have a beautiful woman who wants to have your baby doesn't mean you need to hate on Jasper."

"Didn't Lauren just turn you down for a date Friday?" Edward asked Lee, changing the subject. "And Lauren will do anyone."

"Emmett and I have to fight her off with a stick," Russell added.

"What's going on class?" Mr. Banner came in and asked, getting the class to settle down. "It's good to see you back Mr. Whitlock. Are you okay?" He must have noticed that I was trying not to cry; it is a good thing I spent all of those years trying to control my emotions or I would not have been able to get through that day.

"No. Lee just congratulated me on having a miscarriage," I answered.

"Lee, that's very rude. Just because Jasper's a little young for parenthood doesn't mean that you can treat him like that. My wife and I lost a pregnancy once and it was horrible. I'm sorry for your loss Jasper. And if anyone gives him a hard time about it again I'll be writing up detentions," Mr. Banner warned before starting the lesson for the day.

After that, no one congratulated me again in first period, but there were a slew of kids in my other classes that had not heard. I had to put up with the same sort of Newton from the kids in my second and third period classes as well, but by snack pretty much everyone had heard not to congratulate me. Although I still do not understand why they thought losing my virginity was something I should be congratulated on.

At lunch, a bunch of kids came up to my table to ask me other questions. I was sitting with Alice, my brothers, Henry, and Henry's girlfriend Melissa, when Lauren, Jessica, Bella, and Angela came over.

"Is it true that the baby was a girl?" Lauren asked.

I could not tell what she wanted so I answered, "Yes," and looked at her questioningly.

Alice must have had a better idea at what these girls wanted, because she answered, "She was beautiful. He even has a picture of him holding her on his cell phone. Let me see your phone Jazz."

I handed Alice my phone and she showed the girls my background, which was a close-up of my daughter in my hand. I did not want to put any of the other pictures on my phone, because this was the only one where you could not see that I was the one in the wheelchair and the hospital gown, while Alice was standing in street clothes.

"Aw! How adorable!" Jessica exclaimed cooing over my daughter.

"She was soo tiny," Angela added.

"I've never seen a baby that small before," Bella stated.

"That's really amazing," Lauren said.

"I can't believe you had this picture this whole time and Henry never told me. Your daughter was really something Jasper," Melissa, Henry's girlfriend said.

"Hey, he never showed it to me!" Henry defended himself as I put my phone away.

"So what was it like holding your baby?" Bella asked.

"Heartbreaking," I answered simply.

"Did you get to hold her too Alice?" Lauren asked.

None of these girls, besides Bella, had ever come over and talked to Alice before, but she did not seem to mind and answered their questions. "Yes. It was the most memorable moment of my life."

"That's so sad. I hope that there's a happier ending next time," Angela replied.

"Me too," Alice said.

Alice continued to talk about our baby to the five girls for the duration of lunch. The girls all seemed nice enough about it, but I really did not like everyone knowing about my miscarriage like that, so I resolved that if it ever happened again, I was not going to let everyone know. I had not even been the one to blab this time: Russell had.

"I'm sorry man, but they asked where you were and I didn't know what else to say," Russell apologized to me after lunch.

"Next time we'll have a story in place beforehand so that this doesn't happen," I replied. Normally Alice comes up with the cover stories, but like me, she was too upset to have been thinking about that at the time.

When Alice and I got home after school that evening, I signed us up for a spot in the garage, because tonight just happened to be free. Alice did not say anything; she just sat across from me and did her homework, like we always used to do. And when my aunt called us in for dinner, she just took my hand and led me to the dining room table.

It was not until after dinner that Alice finally mentioned it. "Are you ready to go to the garage now?" she asked me.

"Yes," I replied taking her hand and letting her lead me to the loft.

Once we climbed up the ladder, Alice went to sit on the bed, fully clothed, as if she was not expecting to do what we normally do in there. "What's on your mind Jazz?" she asked me.

"Well, Carlisle said that I'm good to go for sex again. I missed you and I just got to thinking that today should be the day. We have to get it over with sometime," I replied, avoiding mentioning the catalyst for this decision.

"Jazz, you know that I can see what you're deciding," she replied before pausing. "I see you and me with another baby."

"I want our baby back so much Alice," I admitted wringing my hands in front of me.

"Come here Jazz." I walked over and joined her on the bed. "I do too," she replied taking me into her arms and holding me. "But we have eternity together: there is no need to rush."

"I know but we don't have eternity to be human together," I replied, skirting the real issue.

"We have plenty of time left to have a baby before we become vampires," she replied knowingly. "But I don't think that's really what's going on here Jazz."

"I still don't like the vagina and the uterus and all the periods," I admitted. "If there was a baby, then maybe all of those parts wouldn't be so bad, because it would give them a purpose. But I want to get rid of them and we're coming up on my fifteenth birthday when Carlisle said he would remove them…"

"And you're still thinking about going through with it," she said, not asked. "You want to get having a baby over with so that you can rip the otherwise unwanted uterus from your body?" I nodded. "Oh Jazz, this isn't the solution. I don't know what is, but not this."

I started crying and she just continued to hold me, hugging me, and letting me cry. Once I was all cried out she spoke again. "I'm going to talk to Dad about this; I'm sure there's a solution. Between the two of us, we'll find a way to get you that surgery and still have a baby," she said.

"You mean that? You'll let me have the surgery?" I asked hopefully. Alice had never said anything more on the subject than that she hoped I would change my mind.

"Yes, because that's what you want, but only if you agree to really test out the vagina fully before having it removed. Our first time doesn't count and I want you to have the proper experience at least once," she replied.

"Okay, I'll try again with you. And if I'm gonna have the surgery, I should get pregnant again now."

"Jazz, in one future I see you pregnant and you're miserable: you'll genuinely hate being pregnant," she revealed.

"Why?" I had not even noticed the first time.

"I also see a much more likely future where you lose another baby. And in the one where we do get a baby, you come close to losing it several times. You'll be on bed rest the entire time and completely miserable."

"Well if I have another miscarriage then we'll just have to keep trying until we finally succeed."

"I'll look," she said before zoning off. "Every pregnancy seems to be the same with a high probability of miscarriage. It might take us years of trying and losing half a dozen babies before we finally have one. I'm sorry but I don't wanna go through that over and over again and I don't think you'll be able to handle it."

"Then how will we get a baby?" I asked confused. Either I would have to endure the pregnancy and potential miscarriage or we would not get a child. I did not see any other options.

"Let's go take our problem to Dad and see if he has any ideas," she replied, standing up and taking my hand.

We went inside the house and found Carlisle already in his office, so we knocked on his door. "Come in," he replied and Alice and I walked in and sat down on his couch.

"Jasper and I want to have children someday, but he also wants to have that surgery now. And I can see that he'll just have more miscarriages if he gets pregnant again. Can you think of any solutions to our problem?" Alice asked.

"That's too bad Jasper," my uncle said coming over to the couch, sitting down on my other side, and hugging me. "Well I was going to suggest that you keep your ovaries so that eggs could be harvested later. Or, we could harvest eggs now, fertilize them with Alice's sperm, and store them until the two of you are ready," he replied.

Alice zoned off, obviously looking to the future, before coming back to us and replying, "That'll work. I think that's the perfect solution Jazz! Then you can have your surgery and my babies too and you won't have to be pregnant."

"But then who'll be pregnant? You don't have a uterus, Alice."

"Dad?" she asked.

"You can get a surrogate to carry the child for you. The embryos can remain frozen for a prolonged period of time. You can take them out and use them whenever you are ready; even ten or twenty years from now. And a healthy surrogate might be less likely to miscarry," he answered.

"That's perfect Daddy!" Alice squealed climbing into my arms as we continued to sit on the couch. "When can we harvest his eggs?"

"In a few months. I have to set up an appointment for the two of you first, but I'll get on it first thing tomorrow," he answered.

"But why would someone else be less likely to miscarry my baby?" I asked confused.

"Well Jasper, your anatomy isn't normal, so your body may be rejecting the pregnancies," Carlisle said wrapping one arm around my shoulder, while Alice hugged my waist. "Someone else, who's not a chimera, might have better luck. I don't know if the problem really is you; it could also be the embryos, but that first embryo looked healthy. Now I'm starting to wish we had done a full amniocentesis on her…Alice, in that vision you had of the test results, did you hear anything else besides that she was a girl?"

"Yes, you told me that all of the tests came back normal and healthy, with no indication why we miscarried," Alice answered.

"So if the first embryo was healthy, then your body must just be rejecting the pregnancies," Carlisle concluded.

"But why? My uterus is fine, right?" I asked still confused.

"Well, it appears normal. And although your body functions fine when you aren't pregnant, the extra stress of a pregnancy is really hard on the body. You're composed of two different cell types, and although they work together well enough for most things, the boy cells might be interfering and preventing you from carrying a baby to term. Or it could be any of a number of other problems and we just don't know. I'm sorry about this, but using a surrogate should solve both this problem and allow you to remove the uterus now," he finished.

I was not happy about having a defective uterus, but I was not happy about having one at all, and this plan sounded like it could work. So I thanked my uncle and Alice led me across the hall to her room.

"What do you think Jazz? Will you be okay with keeping our babies in the freezer for a few years?" she asked me.

"Can you see us doing so?" I asked.

"Yes. I see us freezing our embryos and using a surrogate, just like Dad said. We wait until after University and then I see us with a perfect little baby!" she exclaimed happily.

"What about Maria and the vampires? Will we remain human that long?" I asked concerned.

"Not in every future, but in one of them, yes. But even if we're turned earlier, we can still use our embryos once we're vampires," she told me.

"We won't hurt the baby if we're vampires?" I asked concerned.

"I can see us as vampires with babies too…but for some reason, there are always two babies when we're vampires, but only one if we're human."

"Twins?" I asked surprised.

"Yes, if we're vampires, I think we'll have twins."

"And do we hurt the twins?" I asked thinking about the fact that Alice never answered my question. "Do we drink them?"

"No! We hold them! Why would you drink my babies?" she asked repulsed.

"Vampires drink blood, babies have blood," I replied shrugging and feeling a little embarrassed that I had suggested it.

"We most definitely never try to drink any of our children, whether we're human or vampire. And we never hurt them either: you're a very loving and caring father."

"Oh. Well then what're we waiting for?" I asked excitedly.

"Carlisle to make an appointment," Alice answered before kissing me deeply.

* * *

><p>Author's note: For those of you who have read my other story, The Gall Stone of Doom, the sequel to it is now up :)<p> 


	55. Chapter 54

Russell's POV:

Now that Emmett and I were married, we were definitely going through the honeymoon period. And by that I mean we could not keep our hands off each other. Like today, we had been out in the forest for a jog with Edward, and Emmett and I just could not keep from touching each other. Edward was totally repulsed and swore he was never going to go jogging with us again, but since we were grounded and jogging in the forest was our only choice for exercise outside the house, I was sure he would cave and agree to go with us again tomorrow.

But my inability to keep off my new husband was not of great concern, because Emmett and I were not banned from the garage. And with Jasper and Alice being out of commission since the miscarriage, and Seth not being able to come over because of Edward's grounding, we had the place to ourselves. In fact, we had even stopped bothering to schedule our sessions on the sign-up sheet, which was located on the wall just inside the garage.

So today, as soon as we got back from our jog, Edward ran inside, while Emmett and I made-out against the side wall of the garage. I started to move our entwined bodies in the direction of the pedestrian entrance to the garage, as my hand ventured lower to grasp Emmett's juicy derriere. But when we finally rounded the corner, I was surprised to find that we were not the only couple with the garage on their minds, because Jasper and Alice were holding hands as they walked to the garage.

Alice stopped Jasper just before the door, to whisper something to him and then kiss him, giving Emmett and me a chance to catch up. We were closer to begin with, but they had been walking faster. "Hey, what's up?" Emmett asked, obviously wondering the same thing: were they in fact going to try to have sex again? We both knew that they had been cleared for sex weeks ago, but in all of that time, they had not ventured into the garage to do anything more than talk.

"Um, we were checking to see if the garage was free right now," Alice replied and Jasper just blushed.

"We were just going to check the same thing," Emmett replied, leaving out the part that we had assumed it would be.

"Alice, we should let them go first: we're going to take longer," Jasper said looking down at Alice's head, because he was now more than a half a foot taller. She had stopped growing around the time he started and so their days of being similar in height were over.

"That sounds like a challenge brother. I'm not exactly quick on the draw either," I replied as I noticed Alice's eyes glaze over. She was probably going into a vision to see how this would end.

"This is silly: you two haven't had the garage in a long time and we have. It's your turn and we'll just go after," Emmett said.

"It's a king sized bed and none of us are related," Alice said suggestively. "There's no reason why you two can't stay on one side, while Jasper and I use the other. I promise not to look."

"Alice!" Jasper hissed through his teeth. "No! I'm out!"

"Shh," she said putting her finger up to his lips and rubbing her hand over his crotch. She kept up her stimulation until Jasper was moaning and clearly not thinking straight. "It'll be okay."

"I don't know," Emmett whispered into my ear, while I continued to grind my hard-on against his thigh.

I had been doing so beforehand, and this delay was only making me needier. Plus, I felt like Jasper had issued a challenge and I did not want to back down and let my little brother think that he could outlast me in bed. Besides, they were practically virgins, so there was no way he could go longer than me.

I nibbled Emmett's ear a bit before whispering, "It's okay Em. I really need you right now; it hurts so badly."

"As long as everyone agrees to stay to their side and not look, we should be good," I said loudly so that Alice and Jasper would be able to hear too.

"Are you sure Alice?" Jasper asked pleadingly. I could tell that he wanted to back out, even though Alice now had her hand down his pants to encourage him on.

"Yes," Alice answered before leading Jasper, by the crotch, into the garage and Emmett and I followed.

Jasper and Alice went up the ladder first and Emmett and I followed after. When we got to the top, Emmett and I made-out by the ladder, while Alice and Jasper retrieved the supplies they would need. I was a little surprised when I noticed Alice getting everything, while Jasper just went to sit on the bed. But then she was the psychic, so she probably knew what they were going to do better than he would.

"What do you want this time?" Emmett whispered into my ear after breaking our kiss.

"Let's start with oral, so I'll last longer. But just get two of everything, that way we can decide later without having to get back up," I whispered back, before capturing his lips in mine once more.

As soon as Alice finished in the cabinets, she laid a towel down on the far side of the bed, and Jasper scooted over. I took that as our cue to retrieve what we needed from the cabinets, so I pulled my lips away from Emmett's and pulled him after me towards the supplies. He nodded and went to his cabinet.

I first went to the towel cabinet, and grabbed a towel, which I laid down on our side of the bed, where Emmett would be laying. Then I grabbed a second towel, which I left folded up, but place by the headboard, as an extra. By the time I was done, Emmett had finished both of our cabinets, and had retrieved two of both condom sizes, two bottles of lube, and a bottle of hand sanitizer. He placed his horde of goodies on the spare towel.

I pulled him into my arms, before removing his clothes and tossing them to our side. Emmett removed mine at the same time and I noticed what Alice and Jasper were doing out of the corner of my eye. They were already naked and Alice was lying Jasper down on their towel. I was not supposed to look, so I quickly diverted my eyes back to Emmett, whom I laid down on our side.

I crawled over him, until I was kneeling above his face and asked, "Do you want to taste?"

Emmett reached out and guided my rock hard cock to his mouth in response and I reached down to run my hands through his short soft dark brown curls. Emmett had beautiful hair and sometimes I wished that it was just a little bit longer, so that I would have something to fist. I did not want it as long as Bella's, or even as long as Jasper's was, but about as long as Edward and I had would be nice. But Emmett's hair was curly while mine was wavy, so I knew that if he let his grow out another two inches, it would just make a mop of curls on his head.

Emmett licked my head before taking me in his mouth. He had a gorgeous mouth, framed by full sun-tanned coral lips that just felt so perfect around my dick. His mouth was wet and warm and perfect and I was already on edge from all of our flirting during our jog. Emmett took me in deeper and sucked harder and I threw my head back and moaned; he just felt so good.

I heard something drop on the other side of the room, and my first instinct was to turn my head and look, but I stopped myself and kept my eyes focused on Emmett instead. But I did notice that his eyes were not trained on my dick in his mouth and he was cheating; he was looking at the couple on the other side of the bed. My curiosity was piqued when the noise repeated and I turned my head just enough to catch Alice bending over to retrieve their condoms, which had fallen to the floor.

Unsure why falling condoms were fascinating my husband, I turned my full attention back to the mouth that was surrounding and sucking my cock. I tried to stop it, but my hips started bucking into Emmett's mouth. One of the things I loved about him was that he did not mind me fucking his mouth. He simply relaxed his mouth and let me take over. I let my hips buck freely, sliding my cock back and forth across his deliciously rough tongue. And before I knew it, I was cumming down his throat.

Once I was done, I pulled out and lied down in Emmett's arms, trying to think about what we should do next. I was no longer hard, but I was also no longer needy for a release right away, which had been the plan. Alice and Jasper were still on foreplay and I wanted to outlast them in order to satisfy Jasper's earlier challenge, which would not be possible if I blew my load right away.

On the other hand, Emmett was still hard and needy and he was grinding his micro into my hip as he held me. That gave me an idea where to start. "Emmett, make love to me first," I requested, reaching up for one of the micro condoms. We rarely used them, because we rarely used his micropenis. In fact, this would be only our fourth time doing so, even though I had made love to Emmett about twice a day since our wedding.

"Of course Rus," Emmett said sitting up while I tore open the condom wrapper. Together we put the condom on, but he grabbed the lube while I just laid back and enjoyed the show. He dispensed a generous amount of lube to both my pussy and his micro and I watched his muscles flexing. He was in great shape, because he loved to work out and lift weights, and sometimes I thought I could lie here just watching his perfectly toned abs all day.

I spread my legs for Emmett, even lifting up my ball sack to help him, and he entered me. It felt good and I was starting to get used to the pleasant sensation, even when he was not hitting my sensitive spot on the bottom. And I just felt so close to him when he wrapped his arms around me and rested his head on my shoulder, like he was doing now.

Emmett turned my head to the left so that he could lavish kisses down my neck, giving me a perfect view of what Alice and Jasper were doing. Alice was on top of him, grinding her cock against his and whispering in his ear. I noticed that Jasper's left arm was up and was holding the still unused condoms. I was a little curious as to why they had not moved passed the foreplay yet and that thought reminded me of the fallen condoms from earlier. So I turned my head back towards Emmett and whispered, "What's up with those two and the condoms?"

"Jasper kept throwing them away and Alice kept stopping him or picking them back up. I'm not sure if he doesn't want the sex or if he just doesn't want the condoms," he whispered back into my ear.

In light of this new information, in now looked like Jasper might be holding the condoms away from Alice and she might be trying to talk him into giving them back. But whatever Jasper's problem was, it was still a mystery. I could not believe that he could be trying to get Alice to have sex with him without protection, not after all the safe sex talks our parents had given us. So I figured he just was not ready for the sex yet, which was reasonable given that they were practically virgins and he had just recovered from a miscarriage a month and a half ago.

And when I had this last thought, another one occurred to me: maybe Jasper did not want to use condoms because he wanted to get pregnant again. My biological mother always responded to a miscarriage by going out and getting pregnant again right away, because she said she missed the lost baby so much she wanted another one to replace it. But then she was always pregnant anyway, Jasper was not my old mom, and I really should be focusing on my loving husband who was trying to make love to me.

Emmett was no longer holding me close, but was using one arm to support his weight as he entered me and pulled out, over and over again. But the best part about this position was that he always reached down to fondle my breasts with his free hand, while he fucked me. Although I did not like the look of my breasts, I loved the feel of them. My chest had always been sensitive and now having my boobs squeezed, kneaded, and licked was just as arousing as have my vagina fingered. And Emmett always made sure to lavish lots of attention on each, taking first the right nipple into his hand and then the left one into his mouth.

Emmett's tongue on my hard nipple sent tingles down my spine and straight to my limp dick and all of the sudden I felt myself wanting more stimulation. I raised my legs and he got the hint, removing my nipple from his mouth so that I could rest my legs on his shoulders. This new position allowed him deeper access, including access to that sensitive spot in the back, plus he was still able to reach down and tweak my nipple between his fingers.

I moaned and my cock began to harden again as Emmett thrust into my sensitive spot. "Wow, I didn't know Emmett could reach your prostate in that position," Alice said interrupting my concentration.

"My what?" I asked confused as Emmett paused on top of me.

"Is that what it's called?" Emmett asked as I looked over to see that Alice was still on top of Jasper, but she had stopped humping him in favor of fisting his dick.

"Yeah. I love it when Jasper strokes my prostate through my vagina, but I never figured that you two would be able to do the same. But don't let me stop you: carry on and I won't look again," Alice said turning her attention back to Jasper.

Emmett turned back to me and started thrusting into me again. Before long he was grunting and moaning on top of me and I could tell he was close. I always wished that I could reach his vagina in this position, but it was always awkward or just out of my reach, so I settled for reaching up to pinch his nipples and asking quietly, "Are you gonna come in me and make me yours Em?"

He bit his lip in concentration, nodded, and removed his second hand from my tit so that he could use two arms to support his weight, allowing him more force with which to pound me. Emmett pounding my prostate was enough to make me fully hard again, even though I came not but five minutes ago. I took my newly acquired erection into my hand and stroked as I finally heard the ripping sound of a condom being opened from the other side of the bed.

I was curious as to what would happen now, so I turned my head to watch. Was Jasper finally ready to have sex? It looked like it, because Alice was inserting a female condom between his legs and adding lube. Emmett and I had never used female condoms, because they were less effective than male condoms, but I knew that Alice and Jasper had to use them because of her hypospadias.

I turned back to Emmett and looked into his eyes, before saying, "Cum for me." He complied with my request and picked up his pace as he neared his orgasm. Then he lowered his body back down to mine, crushing my erect penis between our bodies, and sucking my lower lip between his teeth. He stopped thrusting and I could feel the pulsing that signaled his release. I kissed him back, deepening the kiss.

Once he was done, he pulled out and tossed the condom in the trash, before returning to my arms. I held him, just running my hands along his body and kissing him gently allowing him time to recover. And as Emmett and I shared an intimate moment, I looked over and watched what Alice and Jasper were up to.

Alice had entered Jasper, missionary, but he seemed to have lost his erection. I did not think that he came already, because there was no cum on either of them and I had not noticed Alice making any move to clean up. Plus they had barely started a few minutes ago, so I was just thinking that he must not be enjoying himself when I noticed the grimace on his face.

I knew that I should not be watching, but I could not help myself from interfering, and she had already interrupted Emmett and me once. "Alice, he doesn't like it," I said interrupting her.

"How can you tell?" she asked me curiously as she paused in her movements.

"His erection deflated and his face is all scrunched up in pain," I answered.

"Oh. How do I make him like it?" she asked sincerely.

I was a little taken aback by this question, because I had expected her to be mad that I was looking. But instead she did not seem to mind and genuinely wanted my advice.

"Be still and stroke his penis first. A vagina has to be warmed up before you can take it for a spin," Emmett said before I could think of a response.

"But he was already hard and wet before I started," Alice protested but followed Emmett's advice none the less.

"Yeah, but if he's new to this, then you need to go more slowly with him the first time," I answered thinking back to how I had gone slowly with Bella when we had first gotten together. I had not gone soft and gentle on Emmett for his first time, because he was already seventeen and more than ready for it. Plus I could tell that he was enjoying it, so going fast and hard had been fine.

Bella had only been fourteen and although she was wet and begging for it before I started, she had changed her tune as soon as I had entered her. So I had gone slowly and massaged her clit until she was moaning underneath me before continuing. And even then, I had gone slowly. And like Bella had been then, Jasper was still young and relatively inexperienced.

"Okay, thanks," Alice replied as she continued to stroke Jasper, while Emmett and I turned our attention back to each other.

Emmett knelt over me as he grabbed a condom and put it on me, before kissing me deeply. I did not need to be told twice, so I flipped him onto his back, switching positions with him. I wrapped my arms under his shoulders and pulled him closer as I penetrated him. Normally I would try to hit his G-spot as much as possible, but since he was not hard again yet, I settled for crushing his flaccid micro between us.

I noticed that Emmett was still staring at Jasper and Alice and not me, so I turned my head to see what was going on. Alice still had not resumed movement, while she continued to stroke Jasper's flaccid cock. But he was not getting hard again and that was most likely because he was making eye contact with Emmett, not Alice. "Hey, eyes on me. Keep them here: this's just between me and you," I heard Alice order when she also noticed the eye contact.

I turned Emmett's head to my left, nibbling his ear, to force him to look away. As soon as the eye contact was broken, Emmett was right with me again, moaning under me as his micro hardened again. He started bucking his hips up so that his micro slid along my pubes, but he did not have any lubrication, so I pulled back and grabbed the bottle of lube. I poured it generously onto his cock, before crushing my body once more to his.

I heard Jasper moaning, but kept my attention on Emmett, lavishing his neck and jaw with nips and kisses. Emmett had not shaved since this morning, so his five o'clock shadow made for some nice scruff, which was one of the things I loved about him.

But when I looked up from his neck to gaze into his eyes, I noticed that Emmett was yet again looking at Alice and Jasper, so I whispered into his ear, "Over here big man. I know you wish you could be sandwiched in between those two big cocks, but this is the cock that's fucking you." And to get my point across, I pounded him hard and deep, distracting him from the show on the other side of the bed.

I slowed down a bit as I pulled out and pushed back in hard and deep, trying to keep a slow steady pace, so that Emmett and I would not finish first. But that plan did not last long, because he started pushing up, grinding his micro against my pelvic bone, and he just felt so good while he was doing it. So I sped up a bit and enjoyed the sensation of his tight pussy squeezing around my dick.

Emmett reached up and took one of my breasts in each of his hands and I took this as my cue to turn us over. I had no problem with surrendering control to my husband; in fact I liked it. So when he showed any signs of wanting to lead, I let him ride my cock. Not only did it feel spine-tingling awesome, but it also meant that I did not have to do all of the work and could just lay back and enjoy the show.

He was rising up and sitting back down on my cock, so I placed one hand on his hip to help guide him in his motion. With my other hand, I reached down and fisted his micro in my right hand; well as much as it was possible to fist a micro, meaning I wrapped my thumb and first two fingers around it and slid my modified fist on and off of his minuscule shaft, while he rode mine.

He had his right hand on my ribs, to stabilize himself, but the other he used to massage and knead my right breast, as he rode me. But after about five minutes, he switched to rocking back and forth on my dick, and lowered his body to mine. He wrapped his arms underneath mine and around my neck, just as I liked to do to him, and pulled my body flush against his.

I liked being close to him like this, but it meant that I could no longer fist his micro, so I extricated my trapped arm, which I wrapped around him, pulling him down to me harder. I could feel Emmett's penis thrusting between our groins as he rode me. "Get it Em," I said after hearing him moan: he was clearing getting close again.

I placed both of my hands on his hips, both to help him keep the pace and to push him back further onto my cock. And when he was all the way back on my cock, I thrust up into his wet pussy, trying to fill him as full as possible. He kept moaning on my cock as he continued to ride me, but after another five minutes he laid still on top of me and buried his head on the right side of my neck, which normally meant he was too close to cumming to keep up the rhythm and he wanted me to do all of the work.

I bucked up into Emmett as hard as I could, keeping the pace and hoping to make him cum all over my pubes. But with his head buried on my right, I was forced to look slightly to the left, so I could see what Alice and Jasper were up to. Alice was fucking Jasper again, but going slowly while fisting his erection. Jasper's eyes were closed, but he was moaning and bucking his penis up into Alice's waiting hand.

This was the first time I had ever had a clear look at Jasper's fully erect penis and the sight did not do much for my ego, because he was bigger than me in both length and width, but not by much. Jasper and I were the only ones without micros, and I was older, so I had been assuming that I was larger. Worst case scenario, we were the same size, but to have a baby brother with an inch more than me bruised my ego. If I had known that, I might not have been so eager to agree to this arrangement.

I felt Emmett's pussy clamp tight around my cock at the same time I felt his microcock erupt onto my belly, so I thrust up into him a few more times before stilling my movements. I gave him a minute to rest, while I sucked his nipples, but I was distracted from my licking by Alice, who suddenly screamed out in orgasm.

I watched as Alice climbed off of Jasper and grabbed a hand towel to wipe up the mess she had made between his legs. Then she lied down in his arms and said, "Your turn."

But instead of switching places with her immediately, he pulled her close and whispered something. They continued to whisper back and forth, until Alice climbed on top of him again, only this time she was sitting on his lap, not thrusting between his legs. I was a bit surprised that Jasper was making Alice do all of the work, because he had been on the bottom the entire time, but it was not any of my business so I turned my attention back to Emmett.

I turned him over onto his back once more, but this time I grabbed two pillows and placed them under him, adjusting the angle so that I could pound him deeper. I reentered him slowly, while fisting his micro in one hand, to try to make him hard again. It took me a few more minutes, but once he was ready, he lifted his legs up onto my shoulders, allowing me to thrust directly into his G-spot.

I pounded Emmett with a steady rhythm before picking up both the speed and pace. I fucked him for another fifteen minutes in this position, until he was moaning and withering underneath me again. Then I leaned down and whispered, "I'm close. Are you gonna cum with me?"

"Yes," he hissed grabbing his micro and stroking it in time with my thrusts. He gave himself three strokes before he bucked up into his own hand and started orgasming. And feeling his muscles clench tightly around me for the second time that afternoon was enough to send me over the edge as well.

When I came down from my orgasm, I looked over to see that Jasper and Alice had not finished yet, so he had indeed been correct that Emmett and I would be done first.

"Come on Rus: let's clean up and go," Emmett said drawing my attention away from Alice and Jasper.

I shrugged and went about cleaning up; well as much as we could because we could not change the sheets. As soon as we were dressed once more, I followed Emmett down the ladder, giving Jasper and Alice a final look and they were still going strong.

Emmett led me back into the house, but he could tell that something was bothering me. "What's wrong Rus?" he asked. "I thought you were cool with it."

"I was. But I was trying to prove that I could last just as long as they could, but we finished first," I answered.

"But they weren't even doing anything half of the time, so that doesn't count," he replied, taking my hand in his.

"I know. But also I notice that Jasper's bigger than me," I admitted.

Emmett wrapped me up in his arms before whispering into my ear, "Rus, you're plenty big. You're all the man I need or want and you'll always be enough for me."

"Thanks Em. Now let's go do our homework so Mom doesn't ban us from the garage," I replied feeling slightly better. As long as I was good enough for Emmett, that was all that mattered.


	56. Chapter 55

Jasper's POV:

Alice and I came to the agreement that we would have my eggs harvested and store our embryos indefinitely, before I would have all of my female organs removed. But there was one catch: that I would have to consent to female sex again before the surgery. Carlisle said that he would not be able to schedule the surgery until the summer, leaving Alice and I with months to put my vagina to use, so I thought that we had plenty of time.

I was still upset about the miscarriage and Alice and I were still half virgins, thus I was a bit apprehensive about having sex again. But Alice was chomping at the bit to try again and two weeks after we made our agreement, Alice insisted that it was the perfect time to go out to the garage and try sex again. I was willing enough at first, but then Alice revealed that we would have company.

Alice stopped me just outside the garage door to whisper into my ear that Russell and Emmett wanted to use the garage too. At first I had assumed that we would just have to take turns, but Alice had said that it was extremely important that we share the garage. I tried to protest, but as always, Alice got her way in the end. Thus my second time being penetrating by Alice and my first time the other way around had been in the presence of my two older brothers; how humiliating.

Our adventure in the garage started off with an argument regarding condom usage. Alice wanted to use maximum protection, because our brothers were watching and would tattle on us if they noticed we were not following the rules. I, however, did not want to use any as I still wanted to try getting pregnant again, even though I had agreed that we would not try.

Intellectually I knew that Alice was right and that we should not get pregnant right now and that it would most likely just result in another miscarriage. But emotionally I wanted another baby to replace the one I had just lost. Eventually the argument was settled by Alice threatening to tell Carlisle on me, which would just result in more therapy for me and no sex or resulting pregnancy. Like I said, Alice always wins so there is no point even arguing with her.

After the condom fight was settled and we agreed upon using one female condom only, she penetrated me and discovered the reason why we were sharing the garage in the first place. Apparently it was the advice that Emmett and Russell would give Alice that was so important. She had gotten a bit carried away with giving it to me hard and deep, although slowly, that she had not noticed that she was hurting me. I probably should have said something, but that thought just did not occur to me while it was happening. It was Russell who stopped her and pointed out that I was in pain.

Once Alice took our brothers' advice, the whole experience became infinitely more pleasurable for me. And the two of them were done quickly anyway and left Alice and me to enjoy the garage by ourselves. But even then, I had still been too scared to be on top and made Alice do all of the work. And I was still upset that the experience had not been more romantic.

Alice was the love of my life and my wife, but it did not feel like that. She was grounded and we still lived with my aunt and uncle and we were fourteen year-old kids. I wanted a romantic evening with just the two of us. And I wanted a real date and the chance to take my wife out to eat at a fancy restaurant. I even wanted to go dancing with her. But we were stuck in this house and could do none of that until her grounding ended.

Alice was grounded for life, according to my aunt and uncle. But according to her, she was grounded until whenever I started crying about her being grounded. When she first got grounded, it did not affect me in the least because I was still recovering from the miscarriage and could not leave the house either. It has only been the past two weeks that I have been venturing more and more outside the house, while she has been stuck inside.

So today, which was a Tuesday and only three days after the garage incident, I was sitting on the couch and telling Alice how I felt about wanting to go out. "Jasper, we can do all those things tonight if you just play your cards right and convince Mom to let me out with you. And Edward can even drive us to Port Angeles to go to dinner," she told me.

"How?" I asked.

"Well, Mom just has to see that you're upset. Think about something that is upsetting."

"Like you letting Russell and Emmett watch as you took my virginity?" I asked thinking about how I had caught Emmett watching us more than a few times. Russell had not watched as much, but still in was an encroachment on my privacy that I had not enjoyed.

"Yep," Alice said standing up and leaning over to kiss me on the nose. "Just think about how awful that was and start crying and Mom will be in here in five minutes. I'm gonna go into my room to make it easier for you to get upset: you're always so much calmer in my presence and I don't want to spoil it."

So Alice skipped off down the hallway to her room and I stayed on the couch and began to concentrate on how much I did not like Emmett and Russell watching. Sex was a private matter, meant to be kept secret between two people, but I had lost my second virginity with an audience. And losing the first virginity had resulted in my miscarriage.

At this last thought I pulled out my cell and looked at the picture of my tiny daughter's body in my hand that was my background. Just the sight of her could still bring tears to my eyes if I allowed myself to think about everything I had lost. And while I was thinking about my dead baby, Esme opened her office door and noticed me crying in the living room on her way to the kitchen.

"What's wrong Jazz?" she asked coming to sit by me. We were not really close, but she was my aunt and she tried her best to take care of me.

"Alice expects me to put out, but I don't want to go to the garage. We were trying to lose our virginities in a nice hotel when the miscarriage happened. I don't want to go back to Vegas, but I'm tired of being cooped up in this house and I want to go on a real date," I answered trying not to cry too hard so that the words could still come out.

"Oh Jazz, I am so sorry about what happened to you in Las Vegas. But if you want to go on a real date, then all you have to do is ask. You're not grounded or in trouble and your uncle and I don't want Alice's punishment hurting you," Esme replied putting her hand on my knee.

Esme being really nice to me was a bit awkward and just felt weird, because she was normally a bit distant. I knew she loved me, but she loved the others more and was prone to losing patience with me. So I was a bit hesitant in figuring out how to react, but I eventually remembered what Alice had said and asked, "Can we go to a real hotel too?"

"Well I don't think that'll work this weekend, because Carlisle's working both Friday and Saturday evenings…maybe next week."

"Why does he have to go? Alice and I still have fake IDs," I said pulling out my wallet and showing my aunt the driver's license that claimed I was eighteen.

"I thought the cops took all of these away from you kids? Did they miss yours while you were in the hospital?" she asked pulling out the ID to look at it more closely: it was not every day that a fourteen year-old had a driver's license after all.

"They only took the ones we had on us away. Alice made us a bunch more," I answered shrugging. Maybe other kids would care about their parental figure finding out about their fake IDs, but even if Esme confiscated it, I knew there was an infinite supply where that came from. Plus, there was not much I wanted to do that required one.

"What! Alice has more IDs for all of you kids?" my aunt asked letting her temper flare. "I'm going to go in there right now and make her hand them all over!"

I cringed at the raw emotion, but nodded and said, "That'll do no good: she'll just make more." But I was already on edge emotionally from thinking about the miscarriage and how upset I was over being cooped up in the house that I could not take the additional emotional stress of feeling my aunt's anger, so I started crying again.

"Oh don't cry Jazz. Russell! Emmett!" Esme called loud enough for my brothers to hear upstairs.

"Yes Mom," they both answered appearing at the top of the stairs only slightly disheveled.

"Jasper's crying. Can you boys sit with him while I talk to Alice?" she asked.

"Sure thing," Russell replied as he and Emmett descended the stairs holding hands.

"What's wrong Jazz?" Emmett asked as he and Russell sat on either side of me. I was already sitting against the right side of the couch, but Russell just scooted me over until he could squeeze in.

"It's okay Jazz; we're here for you," Russell added wrapping his arm around me as Esme disappeared into Alice's room and closed the door behind her.

"I want to know what Esme's gonna do: she just found out Alice has more fakes," I said beginning to calm down now that the source of the stress was removed.

"Well then let's go listen in, but you have to promise not to cry," Russell replied.

"How?" I wondered as the last of my sobs left me.

"Like this," Emmett said leading the three of us down the hall towards Alice's room.

"We've known this trick for ages, but don't tell anyone," Russell added as we stopped in front of Alice's closed door and he and Emmett lied down on the floor.

I was not sure what they were doing, but I copied them and lied down as well. As soon as I was down I noticed that I could hear Esme and Alice's voices coming from inside. Alice's voice was calm, while Esme's was angry.

"How many fake IDs do you have young lady?"

"I don't know. They're all in my top drawer if you wanna see." She was calm and collected and did not seem at all upset by the fact that I had spilled the beans. Maybe she already knew I would and her plans would still work out.

"Oh my Darwin! Alice why didn't you tell us you had this many?"

"I was distracted by the miscarriage and you never asked."

"Well I 'm gonna take all of these away and shred them."

"Okay, I'll just make Jasper and me more tomorrow."

"What?"

"I said that I'd just make more. Besides, Jasper has grown since the pictures in most of those were taken and I need to make new ones anyway."

"Is there nothing your father and I can do to make you stop?" Esme sounded exasperated, but she ought to know by now not to argue with a psychic pixie.

"Nope. If you keep me grounded, you'll just hurt Jasper. If you make my punishment worse, Jasper and I'll just run away without condoms. You'll be left wondering if he's pregnant again or even still alive. What if I can't get him to the hospital fast enough when we're living on the streets?" Alice sounded smug like she knew she could not lose this argument.

"Alice, you really need to think about Jasper more. Would you really do that to him? Getting him pregnant again when he's only fourteen and prone to miscarriages is irresponsible. Even if you think you're grown, it doesn't mean that you can take care of both of you indefinitely. You need to think more about what is best for him and less about what you want."

"We'll stay here as long as you and Dad are reasonable."

"Alice, do you even see how you're hurting him? By taking off to Vegas you set in motion a chain of events that led to his first miscarriage. Maybe it wasn't your fault and would have happened anyway, but you need to be more considerate of his feelings. When you act without putting him first, you hurt him, like when he was eleven with the vagina. If you had been putting him first, you would not have taken him to Las Vegas without parental supervision."

"But you and Dad are too strict and are forcing me to act out. How about if I concede to not make fake IDs for Russell, Emmett, and Edward, and you let me take Jasper out on a real date and spend the night in a hotel."

Alice seemed to be losing this argument if you ask me and I would never let us go if I were the parents, but I really wanted to go. There was not much I could do from on the floor out in the hall, but there was one thing and I did it: I started making my aunt see things Alice's way. I calmed her down and reassured her and try to will her to think that this was a good idea.

"I told Jasper that you two could go, we just need to wait until next weekend when Carlisle's free," Esme said. She was bending, but not enough, so I kept up the emotional manipulation.

"No. A real date without parental supervision. We use the fakes to check into the hotel. If you want, you could have Edward drive and supervise most of the date, just as long as he's in his own hotel room and there are no adults." I made this sound like the best idea she had ever heard.

"What if something happens?" I tried to make it seem like this was such a long shot that it was not even worth considering.

"Jasper, Edward, and I know how to defend ourselves. And Jasper and Edward have cell phones and can call for help. I don't see anything happening and Jasper's no longer pregnant, so there isn't much that could happen." I made this sound like a good argument.

"But I don't trust you to look out for him. Not after your track record." That surprised me, so I did not do anything, choosing instead to see how this would play out.

"Mom, I honestly don't know what you're talking about. I try to take care of Jasper. I love him for Darwin's sake! He's my life and it hurts me when he's hurting."

"Then why don't you show it?"

"How? Everything that has happened has been a mistake or an accident or a missed vision. I don't do anything to hurt him on purpose. I'm even letting him get that stupid surgery just because he wants it!"

"They may have been mistakes or accidents, but if you make an effort to put him first and think about how your decisions affect him before you act, then the frequency of these mistakes will lessen. All I'm asking is that you try."

"Okay Mom. I'll try. I love you."

"I love you too Alice. I just wished you didn't argue with me so much. You're too independent for my own good."

Esme and Alice were now all lovey-dovey and it was simple to add the feeling of mutual understanding to the mix. Esme know felt like they had patched everything up, and Russell and Emmett were slowly rising from the floor. I followed them when they tiptoed back to the living room and sat back down on the couch, right where we had been in the first place.

"They're almost done and we don't wanna get caught," Russell explained.

"Okay. That was kind of weird," I replied.

"Tell me about it. If I talked to Mom like that she'd probably ground me for life," Emmett said.

"Alice has always gotten her way a bit more than the rest of us," Russell added.

"It's because she can see how it'll end before it even starts," I explained. I was long accustomed to the concept that there was no arguing with Alice.

"So now that you're feeling better, do you want to go for a jog?" Emmett asked just as Esme was opening the door.

"No, I really just want to go see a movie. The new Harry Potter movie is out," I replied.

"Russell and Emmett can you two please go find Edward for me?" Esme asked. "He said he was going out for a jog when he got home from school half an hour ago."

"Sure Mom," Emmett said taking Russell's hand as they walked outside.

As soon as the door was shut behind my brothers, Esme turned to me and said, "Jasper, I'm going to let you and Alice go out tonight and use your fake IDs to get two hotel rooms. Edward's going with you for supervision, but you need to bring your cell phone with you and be very careful. I don't want you kids getting hurt, do you understand?"

"Yes. Thanks Esme!" I exclaimed happily, sharing my excitement; she was excited with me. "I'll be careful and you know that I'll defend all three of us. Plus Edward's sixteen and a half and will be there the whole time."

"Good. Alice said that the plan is to leave in ten minutes, see a movie, go to dinner, and spend the night in a hotel. It's a school night, so you three will have to wake up early to drive back in time to make it to school. I do not want you kids late for school, got it?" She felt like she was in on the plan, almost like the whole thing was her idea.

"Yep. I'm going to pack an overnight bag," I said heading up the stairs just as Edward came in the front door. Russell and Emmett were not with him, so I figured those two just ended up taking a detour in the garage.

I went to my room to get dressed and pack my overnight bag and quickly became overwhelmed: I still was not good at picking clothes that matched and I wanted to look nice tonight. But I had spent a lot of time learning how to deal with this getting dressed situation, so I knew that I had to break it down into individual tasks.

I started with pajamas for tonight, as that would be easiest. Alice kept my pajamas in the second drawer, so I opened it and grabbed the first pair of pajama pants I saw. I was just folding them and putting them in my bag when Alice came into my room. "Let me do that for you Jazz," she said going over to my closet and quickly picking my nicest suit, but not the tux. "Here put this on."

I took the suit from her and quickly changed into the pants while Alice picked out a shirt to go with the suit and pulled out a pair of dress shoes and socks. I grabbed the rest of the clothes and finished getting dressed while Alice packed my bag. I saw her replacing the ratty old pair of pajamas with a new pair that she had just ordered for me online. It had been in the bottom of the drawer still wrapped in the plastic.

While Alice was packing, Edward came in wearing his suit and asked, "What's going on Alice?"

"I've gotten you a date with Seth in the city. I know, I know, you two are just friends. But you can be not friends at the movies, at an expensive restaurant, and then do whatever you want. Mom wants you to stay with us in a neighboring hotel room, but she'll never know if Seth goes along and you go back to his place with him," Alice answered.

"And why would I want to go back to Seth's place? We aren't dating Alice," Edward said exasperated like he had said this a million times. In fact, it sounded familiar so I think he had said this before.

"You're not dating now, but by the end of tonight, you will be," Alice replied smugly. "You can go back to his place so that his parents don't get mad because I couldn't get their permission for him to spend the night: apparently Mom told them that you're grounded so they won't buy it that you're ungrounded unless they hear it from Mom or Dad. And Mom and Dad can't know that you're going with Seth, or they'll never let you go, because you're grounded. Now go brush your teeth for your first kiss with Seth."

"Well you were right about Eric, but I still don't see how you can be right about Seth. Besides, I haven't even called him yet so he probably won't even be free."

"I already called. He's waiting for us to pick him up at Jacob's house, so hurry. We don't want to be late for our movie," Alice insisted.

"There's no betting against her Edward," I reminded him.

"Yeah, you're right. I'll pack a bag and be right down," Edward replied.

"Seth'll like the red pajamas with the red hearts and kisses," Alice called after him.

After that, Alice and I went downstairs and received a repeat on our instructions from Esme while we waited for Edward. Then Edward came down and we were on our way.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: This was Jasper's first time using his empathy to consciously manipulate someone else. Between Jasper and Alice, Esme can't even remember what a bad idea this is…Did I warn you all that Alice was going to be trouble?<p> 


	57. Chapter 56

Jasper's POV:

After the three of us left the house, Alice told Edward to swing by Jacob's house to pick Seth up. When we got there, Seth was out on the front lawn waiting for us along with Jacob and his imprint Quil. Jacob had broken up with Edward after shifting into a wolf and imprinted on Quil, who was still only thirteen. This was the first time I had seen the couple, so I was a bit surprised to notice that Quil and Jacob were playing more like brothers than like lovers. There was not a sexual vibe in the air between the two and instead they were wrestling on the lawn.

"Hello Edward! Hey Alice, Jasper!" Jacob greeted us coming over to my car window. "Alice called and said you're going out. Sam and Leah are just gonna run the periphery of Port Angeles real quick to make sure that it's safe, but we haven't had any signs of Maria, so you should be good for the night."

"Thanks Jacob," I replied as Seth climbed into our car.

Once Edward had taken off and we were on the road again I asked Seth, "What's up with Jacob and Quil? I thought that they were boyfriends."

"Not yet: Quil's only thirteen, while Jacob's seventeen already. It's against our laws for teens under the age of fifteen to date people over the age of fifteen. So Jacob'll have to wait two more years until it becomes sexual," Seth answered.

"What about Quil? What if he gets horny in the meantime?" Edwards asked curiously.

"Well he could take care of that himself or get another boyfriend his own age and Jacob would just have to deal with that," Seth answered.

"So is Quil gay then?" I asked.

"He's not sure yet. He's open to the possibility, but he's still considering girls too. Personally, I knew by that age that I liked boys, but Jacob said to give Quil time to decide what he likes on his own," Seth answered.

"Just so you know, he's gay," Alice replied knowingly.

"Enough of Jacob and Quil. How'd you get off grounding Edward?" Seth asked excitedly.

"I didn't. Jasper wanted to go out and Alice and I were granted a reprieve to take him out. I have to report back to finish my sentence tomorrow," Edward answered.

After that, Seth and Edward talked about all of the things Edward had missed while he was grounded and all of the things that they should do together when Edward officially gets off being grounded. And while they talked in the front seat, Alice and I cuddled in the back.

Those two were still going strong when we arrived in Port Angeles, but they had to stop talking while Alice bought us movie tickets. Seth wanted to see some R-rated horror movie, but I wanted to see Harry Potter, so Alice bought four tickets for Harry Potter. Then we got snacks and went into the theater to wait for the movie to start.

"How much money did Mom give you for tonight Alice?" Edward asked as we all ate popcorn.

"None. I'm treating," Alice answered.

"But I thought you maxed out your credit card in Vegas," Edward replied.

"I did, but I paid it off as soon as we got back and I had access to a computer to transfer funds around," Alice answered.

"But that was like five thousand dollars Alice!"

"Duh, I know: I paid it."

"How'd you get that kind of money and still have enough to cover tonight?"

"Stock market. William gave me two hundred dollars when I was five to invest. I've done pretty well for myself, despite the stock market crashes, so I'm pretty much set for life," Alice answered.

"All from two hundred dollars nine years ago?" Seth asked incredulously.

"Yep."

"Is that why Mom and Dad let you get away with so much? Because you threaten to run away and they know you have the means to carry that threat through?" Edward asked.

"Almost. They don't know how much I've got, because I don't show them my stock portfolio. They only get to see my bank statement and my credit card balance."

"Why didn't they take your credit card away after Vegas?" Edward asked.

"Because I'd just get another one. Now be quiet, the previews are starting," Alice hushed Edward.

The movie was really good and I snuggled up to Alice as I watched Harry, Ron, and Hermione search for horcruxes. Afterwards, Alice took the four of us across the street to an Italian restaurant.

"Whitlock, party of two and Cullen party of two," Alice told the hostess as we arrived.

"Just a moment," the hostess replied.

"I thought that the four of us were having dinner together Alice!" Edward hissed.

"We are, but Jasper and I want to be alone, so you and Seth are gonna be on the other side of the room. Please don't cock block tonight Edward," Alice requested before the four of us were shown to our two separate tables.

"Fine," Edward hissed as he let himself be led away with Seth.

I ordered the sausage tortellini, while Alice ordered a stake with angel hair pasta. As soon as the waitress was gone, Alice took my hand across the table and said, "I really hope that I do a better job making you happy tonight."

"You always make me happy: I love you," I replied.

"I know and I love you too. But I also know that you, Emmett, and Russell were listening in at the door when I was talking to Mom. A lot of what she said about me hurting you was true."

"The miscarriage wasn't your fault. Even Carlisle said that."

"I know, but I shouldn't've announced the plans for our honeymoon when I was ten. I've tried to learn from that mistake. That's why I let Carlisle tell you that you were having a period that first time and I let the doctor in Vegas tell you about the miscarriage."

"I would've rather have heard about the miscarriage from you. It wasn't that you were the one to tell me about the vagina, it was how you said it that upset me."

"I know. And I'm gonna try my hardest to make you happy. You want the surgery and I don't. But it's your body and I want you to be happy with it."

"Will I be happy with the surgery?" I asked curiously.

"I honestly don't know. I can see you immediately after and you aren't happy. But I can also see us as vampires and you're perfectly happy. I get glimpses of in between, but I can't tell if you're happy or not."

"Why am I not gonna be happy immediately after?"

"It won't be done. You're gonna need more than one surgery to fix everything."

"Didn't you need more than one surgery too?" I asked thinking about that surgery she had had when we were eleven; the one I had missed because I was still so mad at her for telling me about my own vagina. Carlisle had told me that she had a surgery shortly after birth as well.

"Yes, but my surgeries all did the absolute minimum possible. The surgery after I was born simply cut my vaginal lips apart so that I could pee. And the surgery when I was twelve just extended the cut another centimeter to fully expose my vagina, because there was still skin in the way. You're having a lot removed and having balls added: that's a lot to do."

"Oh. But if I'll be happy again one day, then I think that means that I'll like it as soon as all of the surgeries are complete and everything's healed."

"Maybe…"

"Alice?"

"Yes Jazz?"

"How are we getting home tonight? You said that Edward is going to go home with Seth."

"Taxi cab. I'll call a cab in the morning to drive us to school."

"Good. I was worried that we were gonna be stuck in the city until Edward comes back for us. And Esme would be mad if we were late for school."

"Don't worry about school; I can see us being on time."

"What about Edward and Seth? Are they really going to start dating tonight?" I asked wondering how a romantic dinner for two was going to get those two lovebirds together.

"Yes. I can't see how it happens, but tomorrow after school Edward tells me that he and Seth are officially a thing. It's set in stone."

"Then why can't you see how it'll happen?"

"I don't seem to be able to see anything having to do with the wolves. I think one of them must be involved somehow."

"Leah and Sam are supposed to be in the city tonight watching for Maria. Can you see vampires?"

"Yes, I can see them, but not as clearly as humans. But I can't see Maria when she comes to town because the wolves are always involved." Frustration at her lack of sight was evident in her voice.

"Tell me about our lives when we're vampires," I requested.

"Well you're a ferocious vampire. With your wrestling skills, you can take down even the largest and strongest of vamps."

"What about the wolves?"

"I can't see them. But if I look really hard, I can see you in my arms as you tell me about how you took down five wolves without even touching them using your power."

"My power?" I asked confused.

"Your thing with the emotions will become amplified when you change: that's why Maria wanted you. You'll be able to control the emotions of others, like you did with Esme tonight. You'll be able to make your opponents give up without a fight."

"That sounds cool. What about you?"

"My psychic abilities will be amplified. Maybe I won't miss so much anymore…" she trailed off longingly.

"You don't miss much now. I can't believe you got the three of us out of the house with permission to stay out all night on a school night."

"I could see that I just needed to push Mom a little and let her see what I was capable of. She chose her battle and she'd rather have the two of us living with her than on the streets. Plus, I knew you'd help me."

"Would we really live on the streets if she kicked us out?"

"Of course not! I'd never do that to you: I just had to let Mom think that I would. If she kicks us out we'll move to Reno, live in a five star hotel, which we'll pay for using our gambling winnings."

"What about school?"

"You don't even need school: you're already smarter than all of your teachers."

"But I want to be a history professor."

"I know and you will be. But you'll have to wait until after you're a vampire for that, no matter which future we choose."

"Vampires can't teach school," I objected.

"They can when they're old enough to control their thirst. Now tell me what you thought about the movie because our waitress is gonna come out here with our food in a minute. I was trying to take your feelings into consideration when I let you pick it."

So we spent the rest of the meal talking about the movie as we ate. Afterwards, we met up with Seth and Edward, who drove us to a hotel, and we got a room on the ground floor. The four of us were just checking out the room, when Seth asked, "What's that smell? There's a really strong sickly sweet odor."

"It smells kind of like William," Alice offered.

"Maybe it's Maria?" I asked sniffing the pleasantly sweet aroma that reminded me of Texas.

"I'm gonna step outside and call Leah," Seth said pulling out his cell and going outside, but he left the door open so that we could see his silhouette against the full moon.

Seth did not get an answer from Leah, but he did get through to Jacob, who promised to turn into a wolf right away and find out what was going on. But Jacob never got back to Seth before a short female appeared out of nowhere in the parking lot. I thought that it was Maria, but was not sure until I heard her speak, "Jasper, tell your dogs to leave me be. I'm only checking to make sure that you're alive and well."

I did not know how to respond to that and Seth started shaking in anger at being so close to a vampire. Edward was reaching out to Seth, to try to calm him down. "Back away from him Edward!" I heard Leah's voice yell, but I could not see from where. Edward listened and pulled his arm back towards himself and Alice dragged Edward back inside our room, leaving Seth alone outside the door.

And then Leah must have shifted back to a wolf, because her grey wolf came out from behind a car to snarl at Maria, just as Sam's black wolf approached from the other side.

And as the two wolves closed in on Maria, she jumped onto the roof and escaped while Seth started snarling and transformed into a giant tan colored wolf. The wolf looked like he was about to run after his sister and join the chase, but then he looked back at us and froze. And the strange part about it was that I suddenly felt overwhelming love wash over the Seth wolf as he gazed into Edward's eyes. I had never felt anything more than lust or friendship between the two before.

"Not you too Seth," Edward begged as he looked into Seth's eyes.

"He loves you," I told Edward.

"You love me? Since when do you love me Seth?" Edward asked. Seth just lied down at Edward's feet and rested his giant head on his giant paws. Then Edward let out a gasp of realization. "Did you just imprint on me?" The tan wolf raised his head just enough to nod, so Edward sat down next to him and hugged him. "You'll be okay. One day you'll be able to calm down enough to turn back into a human.

And somehow just being with Edward was enough, well that and I was trying to send out calming vibes to everyone, because Seth turned back into a boy right then and there before my very eyes. Only he was now naked because he had torn off his clothes when he transformed.

"Come inside quickly and change," Alice hissed digging through Edward's overnight bag until she found some pajama pants for Seth to where.

Seth took the clothes, ran into the bathroom, and came back a minute later. "Leah and Sam chased Maria off into the ocean, before doubling back to make sure we were safe. Jacob left when we called and he's already out in the parking lot keeping guard on Jasper and Alice with the other two. Sam told me to go back home as soon as I could, but I was too busy imprinting on Edward here to listen. I just couldn't leave my imprintee if there was a risk of vampire attack," Seth explained.

"Okay. So Maria's gone and Jacob, Leah, and Sam are here to watch us. We'll be fine, so Edward, you drive Seth home and spend the night over there. Jasper and I'll catch a cab to school in the morning," Alice reasoned handing Edward back his bag and ushering Seth and Edward away. "And no kissing in front of the children."

And with that, Seth and Edward were in love and on their way, leaving Alice and I to enjoy our second honeymoon inside the hotel room. I thought that Alice would start with wanting sex from me, but instead she led me into the bathroom and we shared an intimate bath together. But Alice did not even get frisky during the bath and when she put her clothes back on when we finished, I got suspicious. "What's going on Alice?" I asked her as I put my pajamas on.

"Nothing. I'm just gonna buy a car tonight because I'm tired of bumming rides off of Edward," she answered.

"But you don't have a license," I protested.

I took driver's ed online last year and I was making Edward drop me off at a driving school here in Port Angeles three days a week all summer. I can drive."

"How did you get into driving school when you were thirteen?"

"Fake IDs Jazz. Now I want you to stay in the room while I go out to meet Francisco and buy this car."

"No way! I told Esme I'd make sure that you didn't get hurt."

"And I told her the same of you. Now I'll be fine, so if you want, you can watch me from the doorway. I'll be visible the entire time," she assured me. I nodded my head and gave her a kiss, before watching as she walked outside to meet some guy with a bright yellow Porsche. Alice handed over some cash, while the guy handed over car keys and paperwork. Then Alice came back inside, while the guy drove off in an old beat up Toyota.

"Did you just buy a Porsche?" I asked Alice.

"Yeah, do you like it?"

"I think that it's a bit ostentatious for a car you aren't even supposed to own when you're only fourteen," I answered.

"Relax Jazz. No one'll find out and you and I can drive around whenever and wherever we want."

"Where are you gonna keep it?"

"There's a little trail in our forest that I paid to have cleared to make room to park it. I even bought a car cover so that it won't get wet and dirty in the forest, but let's not dwell on that. Tonight's our night to make as perfect as we can," she said hugging me.

After that Alice lit candles and turned the simple hotel room into a romantic getaway, before laying me down on the bed and undressing me. I did the same to her and for the first time, I let Alice be on the bottom. The whole experience was slow, sensual, and perfect, so we finally got the honeymoon the way I wanted it. I was very pleased with the way the night turned out.

That is I was very pleased until I woke up in the morning and had to let Alice drive me to school in her new sports car. We were late because I had made the decision to go for a second round and she had therefore forgotten to set the alarm. She was a terrible driver, and I was scared to death for the entire half an hour drive; it takes an hour to drive back to Forks from Port Angeles, but she was going so fast that she covered the distance in half the time, while almost giving me a heart attack.

Five minutes before we arrived at the school, I realized that I was crying too hard to be able to go to class, so I texted Russell, "Driving in with Alice now: she drives like a maniac. Please help. I wanna go home."

Russell texted me back, "How'd Alice get a car? Aren't you two supposed to be with Edward? What happened? I'll meet you at the front of the school and take you back home."

"Darwin!" Alice exclaimed just as we were approaching the school. But instead of turning into the parking lot, she pulled into the gas station next to the school and stopped. "What changed?"

"What'd you see?" I asked trying not to let her see that I had been crying and not wanting to reveal what I had texted about her to Russell.

"The principal's gonna be waiting out front of the school and will notice that I'm driving the car when I'm only fourteen. Let's park here and walk in. I can get the car on the way back home," she said getting out and grabbing our backpacks from the trunk.

"Okay," I said taking my bag from her. Then Alice and I walked through the forest until I saw Russell.

"What's Russell doing out here?" Alice asked. "The school bell rang five minutes ago."

"I texted him," I replied before breaking into tears again.

"What happened Jazz?" Russell asked running up to me and the principal followed.

"I want to go home," I replied in between sobs.

"Ms. Cullen, what did you do to Mr. Whitlock?" Principal Greene asked Alice.

"Nothing, honest. We just got dropped off by Edward and walked over from the gas station. Sorry we were late, but Edward wasn't feeling good and had to go back home," Alice lied.

Principal Greene looked into the forest that separated the gas station from the school, so I turned to look to see what he was staring at: the yellow of Alice's Porsche could just be made out through the trees. "Edward's already in class. Was that your yellow Porsche that just drove past?" he asked.

"No," Alice continued to lie, even though her story was breaking apart.

But the principal must have heard the story about Alice and the fake IDs, because he did not believe her and took the three of us to his office. He sent someone else out to investigate and the gas station attendant confirmed that he had seen Alice and me get out of the car, with no legal driver present. Then the principle made Alice and I turn out our pockets and took away our fake IDs, before calling my aunt to come get us.

Alice got five days' worth of suspension for driving the car, while I got two hours' worth of detention for going along with it. And since Russell was not involved, Principal Greene wanted to send him back to class, but I just kept holding onto him while I cried, so Esme said that Russell could go back home with us. When we got home, Alice got in trouble for buying and driving a car, while Russell and I went up to my room so that I could tell him what happened.

When I finished my story about Seth changing into a werewolf, Maria's visit, and Alice's horrid driving, he just patted my hair soothingly as I lay in his arms and asked, "What was Alice thinking? She knows that you're afraid of bad drivers ever since your mother was run over."

Russell had been with me almost as long as Edward, so he knew all about the nightmares I used to have when I was little. It was always the same two: either reliving the day my mother died again or watching helplessly as my father committed suicide. That's why Russell and Edward always made sure to drive extra carefully and slowly when I was in the car. But Alice had completely ignored my hang-up against reckless driving and had floored it, trying to make it to school on time.

About an hour later, after Alice had finally finished being yelled at by my aunt, she came in and apologized. "I'm sorry Jazz. I should've woken up earlier so that we could've left earlier and driven safely. And I really should've stuck to the original plan of calling a taxi. I won't make you ride with me driving again and I'll sell the car. I should've been thinking more about how you'd feel," she said before giving me a hug.

"It's okay Alice. I forgive you," I replied returning the hug. I could never not forgive my Alice, no matter what she had done. "But you loved that car. Why are you going to sell it?"

"Because I promised that I would do a better job of not hurting you, starting with getting rid of that car and my temptation to drive it. Mom just finished having a long talk with me and I can see now that even though I tried to think about you last night, I drew the line at the car; I put the car first. The car's going and now I really am gonna do a better job of taking your feelings into consideration," Alice promised. "Plus Mom got so exasperated she started thinking about calling William."

"And what'll happen if she calls William?" I asked curiously.

"He'll come and take me back to Alaska with him and no amount of fortune telling will allow me to escape and come back to you. And as it is he's gonna find out next month when he calls to check on us, so he's gonna take my stocks away."

"That means no more endless supply of cash to do as we please," I replied dejectedly as Esme came into my room.

"Jasper, can I talk to you alone," Esme said, causing both Alice and Russell to exit my room.

"Sure," I replied, thinking that I did not seem to have much of a choice.

"I just got through lecturing Alice regarding her treatment of you, but you're at fault here too."

"Me?" I asked thinking that I had been the victim in all of this.

"Yes you. You got into that car with Alice instead of calling me; you have a cell phone, so there's no excuse. And Alice used your cell phone to arrange that meeting to buy the car. You're the only one who can determine how Alice will treat you. You need to stick up for yourself and stop letting her hurt you. Love is a two-way street, so you're both to blame when you let Alice walk all over you."

"So when I don't like something, I need to speak up?" I asked wondering where she was going with this.

"Exactly. If you let Alice know when she's hurting you it'll make it easier for her not to do those behaviors. Your uncle and I've tried ever since we took her in to make sure that she doesn't hurt you. But you two are growing up and we can only interfere so much. Now it really has to be on you," she told me honestly.

"Okay Auntie, I'll try," I replied honestly. Maybe I could try a little harder to let Alice know how I was feeling, instead of going along with her so readily.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: I didn't get any reviews for the last two chapters :( I only have eight chapters left of this story that are already written, with the last two chapters left unwritten, but if no one is reading it, then there's no incentive for me to finish it. I think I'll just leave it here until I hear from someone.<p> 


	58. Chapter 57

Jasper's POV:

The next day Tanya called Esme for a friendly chat. The two of them had become friends and communicated over the phone regularly and this was meant to be just another girl's gossip session. But when my aunt mentioned that fourteen year old Alice's behavior was out of control, everything changed and Tanya pressed for details. Alice always said that these calls were just Tanya's, and the rest of the vampires for that matter, way of keeping tabs on us and never did this prove truer than after Alice purchased that car.

Tanya was married to William, Alice's first parental figure who just so happened to be a vampire. And when he found out that Alice had been running wild and using her visions to get her way, he was livid. He and Tanya arrived two days later and have been here ever since. They took up residency in a little two bedroomed cabin on the property that we did not even know existed. It needed a few repairs, but unfortunately for Alice and me, Esme was quick to help with that and the place was livable inside a week.

Tanya and William's moving to town was unfortunate because they made Alice move in with them. "I trusted you to behave with the Cullens young lady and you've betrayed that trust! Now you'll have to live with us where you will be unable to get away with all this nonsense!" William had proclaimed as he started packing up Alice's stuff. Even though he had let my aunt and uncle take her in, he felt like he was the rightful parent and I was fairly certain that he only did so because of the species difference.; if he had been a human he would have adopted her himself.

Alice was legally Esme and Carlisle's child, but she was not leaving the property and they agreed that she was out of control, so they let William and Tanya take her. "It'll be alright, Jazz. I'll just be on the other side of the forest and we'll still be together all of the time," she told me through her tears as she helped pack up her things, having already seen in her visions that arguing would just make it worse.

And so Alice moved out. She no longer lived in the same house as me and she was grounded for five entire months, in which she did not get to come over. And since it was already the beginning of December when she got grounded, it was spring before she was ungrounded. My fifteenth birthday came and went with Alice still grounded. I swear I was going through Alice withdrawals, although I did get to see her every day at school. Thankfully, her grounding eventually ended, and once it was over we spent almost as much time together as before she moved out.

William was reluctant to let Alice spend so much time over at my house after the way she had acted, but she had been on her best behavior lately and Esme and Carlisle had convinced him that I needed her. I needed her now more than ever because the date of my surgery was quickly approaching. Not only did I have to prepare for a surgery, but I also had my eggs harvested in preparation for the removal of my ovaries.

Carlisle kept his word about scheduling an appointment for Alice and me to see an OB GYN and I started my hormone treatments while she was still grounded; our doctor's visits were one of the few things Alice got to leave the house for. The hormones were necessary in order to force my ovaries to produce a large quantity of gametes for the harvesting process, although they made me very emotional. My frequent mood swings caused by the hormones were one of the main reasons William finally agreed to let Alice off grounding, which happened none too soon I might add.

William officially ungrounded Alice the day of the harvesting and I was really grateful he did, because it meant she was there with me holding my hand during the scary procedure, involving a huge needle.

"You had nothing to worry about Jazz. William was always gonna unground me today and let me be here with you. Truthfully, I think he was ready to let me off the hook last month, but he wanted to keep us apart while you were ovulating so that you wouldn't get pregnant again," Alice told me as she held my hand.

One of the rules Alice and I had to follow in the weeks leading up to the procedure was that we were not permitted to have sex; not at all. Eggs have to be unfertilized when removed, which normally just means wrapping it up with a condom, but with our track record, the doctor did not trust Alice and me to not have another accident, so sex was off limits completely.

"I don't think William trusted us to obey the no sex rule and he didn't like the idea of us having sex period," Alice revealed, trying to distract me. "But at least we won't have to obey that rule much longer."

Of course Alice had been correct about that latter part and we had resumed engaging in sexual intercourse with each other as soon as we got home that day. We had an entire five months of celibacy to make up for after all. Plus there were only two months scheduled between the harvesting and my surgery; the surgery where I would have half of my genitalia removed and which would leave me unable to have sex for months.

Given that we had not had sex for so long and were about to spend the next several months practicing celibacy, I could not blame Alice for jumping my bones every chance she got. Plus we were horny teenagers, so it was to be expected. And it was not like I was complaining about all of the hot sex; she even let me try out anal sex, which I had been dying to practice for after the surgery, because she would still have that penis and we would need a place to stick it.

William and Tanya were the only two with a problem with all the sex. Even though we never did it at their house, they still knew. Every time Alice came over she said that they had smelt it on her the previous night when she had returned. Consequently, she was receiving nightly lectures on the dangers of premarital sex from the pair, because they were still unaware of our wedding back in Las Vegas.

Having lectures on premarital sex when you are already married seemed a bit odd to me, but Alice insisted that it was better if William and Tanya did not know about our marriage. She considered going behind their backs to Carlisle and getting him to ask her new guardians to lay off the sex lectures, but given that said guardians were vampires and she was already skating on thin ice, she thought better of it. Getting William to relinquish her stock portfolio was worth the nightly sex talks as far as she was concerned.

Personally, I thought that the main reason why Tanya and William had a problem with our love life was that Alice was still only fourteen. Sure I was already fifteen, but she would not be fifteen until August, which was still two months away. Fourteen was a bit young for sex, but my aunt and uncle were not concerned and given that we had accidently gotten pregnant while we were still virgins, I was over it myself.

And despite the frequent lectures on sex, I did not think that William and Tanya were unreasonable in the slightest. They let Alice use the garage with me every day once her grounding was over and they even let her stay with me last night, despite the fact that they knew we were going to use the time together to have sex. They normally did not allow her to sleep over with me, but they had made an exception because they knew how nervous I was over my surgery today.

Today was the big day and Carlisle was just going to give me a quick physical to double check that everything was in order before calling in the anesthesiologist to put me out. The plan was for me to have the surgery the first week of summer vacation, so that I would not miss any school. If all went well, I should be completely healed and ready for my senior year, before school starts back up in the fall.

I was lying back on the exam table at the big hospital in Seattle, because the hospital in Forks was not big enough to perform a complex surgery like mine at. I was having yet another ultrasound with Carlisle and Alice by my side when I got the news.

"I can't do the surgery today Jasper," Carlisle told me while watching the screen and looking at my insides.

"Why not?" I asked confused. I had done everything he had asked of me, including chugging a ridiculous amount of water for this ultrasound, which I had assumed was just a needless precaution.

"This right here is your uterus Jasper," Carlisle said pointing to what looked like a bend in the staticy image.

"And?"

"And do you see this thing right here that's moving?" he asked me.

"Yeah, what is it?" I asked.

"It's a tiny beating heart. You're pregnant again," he revealed.

Alice gasped as my jaw fell open. Neither of us spoke, but she squeezed my hand in support and I squeezed hers back.

"We'll have to do more tests, but I would guess that you're around two months pregnant, which would coincide with when we harvested your eggs," he said after allowing me to process the news for several minutes.

"But I thought they harvested all of Jasper's eggs?" Alice asked just as confused as I was.

"They harvested seven of Jasper's eggs, but they don't claim to remove one hundred percent of the eggs produced. Obviously they missed one," Carlisle answered.

"I'm gonna have a baby?" I finally managed to choke out while still in a state of shock.

"Yes," Carlisle replied.

And at the same time as he said this, Alice said, "I can't see it."

"You couldn't see the last one either," I reminded her.

"Yes, but I thought that was because she was not meant to be. Dad, I'm really worried that something'll happen to this baby just like the last one," Alice replied sounding extremely concerned.

"Well we can do a series of tests before we let Jasper go home. If something is wrong, we'll find it and try to treat it. Alice, I'll do everything in my power to make sure you two don't lose another baby," Carlisle reassured her, placing his hand on her shoulder as he spoke.

And so that is how I found myself spending the day in the maternity ward undergoing a battery of tests. I have never been so happy to be undergoing medical tests in my life. I would submit to anything if it meant knowing that my baby was healthy. Darwin, just knowing that Alice's baby was once again living and growing within my body made me euphoric. Not even the fact that I had to spend the night in the hospital could dampen my spirits.

"Alice, what do you see the tests showing?" I asked my wife as soon as we had a moment to ourselves. It was already late and Carlisle had gone to his office to file some paperwork before leaving us for the night.

"I can't see clearly, but I think you'll have to be on bed rest for the duration of the pregnancy," she answered.

"It'll be worth it if it means having your baby," I replied smiling up at her and pulling her down to me for a soft kiss.

"There'll be none of that," William proclaimed as he chose that moment to arrive.

"Hi William. I assume Carlisle called and told you the news?" Alice asked cheerfully.

"Yes, I'm going to be a grandfather," William replied smiling as he walked over to my bed. Once he reached Alice he picked her up and spun her around in a joyful hug before setting her back on her feet.

"Please don't tell me you're here to take me home William! I can't leave Jasper pregnant in the hospital with my baby all alone!" she exclaimed just as soon as she caught her breath.

"Don't worry, Carlisle already explained to me that he'd like you to stay with Jasper tonight," he replied.

"Then why are you here?" Alice asked perplexed.

"Because I don't trust you to spend the night alone with your young man. Obviously you two have been up to no good; otherwise he wouldn't be in here. And given your track record young lady, I think it'd be in my grandchild's best interest to protect him or her from you," he revealed.

Although William did not explicitly say it, I knew he was referring to our previous miscarriage which had occurred while Alice and I were having sex, despite all of the doctor's insistences that our having had sex had nothing to do with the miscarriage. Besides, we had no plans on having sex tonight and I did not know if she would even touch me in a sexual way now that she knew I was pregnant. But he was apparently worried that we could not keep our hands to ourselves, even when the life of our unborn child might be at stake. The idea was offensive.

I tried not to get upset over how presumptuous I thought William was being; instead I kept telling myself that he meant well and just had the welfare of my baby in mind. And getting upset would not be good for the baby.

"I see Jasper being in here for a very long time. Does that mean you're gonna stay here with me every night for the duration?" Alice asked incredulously.

"If not me, then Tanya will come. We're going to rent a little house just outside the city. And our being here will make it easier on Carlisle and Esme, because it's a long commute for them to drive all the way to Seattle to check on the two of you," he replied calmly before moving over to a chair in the corner and sitting. "Don't mind me; just pretend I'm not even here."

"Great," Alice grumbled to herself.

"It's okay Alice. He means well," I tried to reassure her as I looked into her eyes.

"I know. I just miss the old times when Dad and Mom were the only ones I had to convince. Remember when you were in the hospital for cutting yourself and it was just the two of us?"

"Yeah," I replied thinking that that was not the only time we had been left alone in the hospital; the miscarriage being the most recent.

"Remember how I climbed into your bed and slept with you every night? You were so skinny then that we could both fit on the twin mattress with plenty of room."

"We still can," I said scooting over and pulling her down onto the bed with me. It was true that there was not as much room as when we were younger and my back was now up against the rail, but we could still fit.

Alice giggled as she snuggled into my arms, causing William to clear his throat. "Relax William. Jazz and I aren't gonna do anything. I just want to hold him and comfort him," Alice said.

"Just don't forget that I'm watching and listening," he warned.

Alice nodded and I took her hand, guiding it to my stomach and resting it over our baby. "Jasper, have I told you yet how happy I am that you're having my baby?"

"No," I replied. She had said something to the effect, but not those exact words, so I decided to tease her.

"When I woke up today I thought that I'd be watching you give up any possibility of ever bearing children with your own body. I never would've guessed that I'd be finding out that we were pregnant. I can't tell you how excited and happy I am to be wrong for a change. And this way really is for the best, because you can still have your surgery as soon as our baby is born."

Truthfully, I had not given a second thought to my failed surgery plans once I learned of the miracle I was carrying. Instead, I had spent my entire day focusing on our good news. And now that Alice had brought the subject up, I could not be bothered entertaining ideas of surgery. I was too busy imaging what the baby would look like and thinking about baby blankets. If we had a girl, we could do the nursery in pink flowers, but if we had a boy, I was thinking about blue sailboats.

"Speaking of being pregnant, when do you think that happened?" I asked her. I knew Carlisle said that we were around two months pregnant, but he had not given us an exact date.

"Well I think it happened the very first time we um, you know, after having your eggs harvested. It had been five whole months of nothing but one big long dry spell; we had both gone so long without that we were a little more careless that night than usual," she said and I remembered back to that night and just how true that statement was. Alice always got her semen all over the place when she came, but that night had been particularly messy. She had made me wear a female condom, but I remember pulling it out and thinking about how gross it was covered in all of that fluid.

"You're probably right," I replied kissing her forehead.

After that we turned on the television and killed time until bedtime. Carlisle came in to tell us he was leaving for the night. He had already planned to stay the night with one of his doctor friends because of my planned surgery. Even though the surgery was off, he was still going to spend the night and would be back first thing in the morning. His interruption only took a few minutes and then Alice and I were right back to watching our show. I fell asleep that night watching television in her arms.

I was hoping that all of my tests would come back with good news and show that my baby was healthy, but Alice could not see it. She could not see me getting to go home and having an easy pregnancy; all she saw were months and months of bed rest. But I felt fine, so I could not figure out why I would have to stay on bed rest. I could only think that maybe Carlisle would find something wrong with his tests and maybe he would be able to fix it.

As it turned out, it was not my test results that held the answers to my questions. Instead my questions were answered three days later when a whole team of nurses and doctors came running into my room and shooing Alice and William out. I felt fine and yet they were running around, messing with my IV and checking monitors, like I was dying or something. I was really scared and wanted Alice back in the room with me or at least Carlisle.

Carlisle was not there at the time, having already gone home to Forks, but the doctors called him and said that he was on his way over. The only problem with that was that I was in Seattle, which was a four hour drive from Forks, where my uncle was. It took him so long to get to me that the emergency was already over by the time he arrived. In fact, the emergency only lasted an hour. When it was over, they let Alice back in the room to hold my hand and calmly explained what all the fuss was about.

"You were having contractions Jasper. We were able to stop them, but you'll have to be monitored closely for the duration of your pregnancy. Didn't you feel the pain?" the doctor asked me.

I had not felt the pain, but I had overheard the nurses saying something about contractions when they were changing my IV. I had been hoping they were talking about someone else. "No, I didn't feel anything," I admitted.

"That's not good. If you can't feel when you're going into labor, then you won't know when to come into the hospital. I'll talk to Dr. Cullen about this, but most likely you'll have to stay here until that baby is born," he replied, confirming what Alice had already told me.

When Carlisle arrived, he repeated what the previous doctor had said and told me that I could except to be in here for the next six or seven months. That would mean missing half of my senior year of school, but I could always go back next year. Besides, I was thinking about taking some time off from school after I had the baby anyway. I could just miss the entire year.

The hardest part about being stuck in the hospital was being so far away from my family. The last time I had been in the hospital, in Las Vegas, everyone had stayed in a hotel in order to stay near me. And the time before that, I was in that hospital in Port Angeles, which was not nearly as far away as Seattle. With a four hour commute, Carlisle, Esme, and my brothers could only visit once a week. At least I had Alice.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Wow! Thank you all for the reviews! They were wonderful and made me decide to keep posting this story...for now. If the reviews stop flowing in again, I'm liable to stop posting again.<p>

Anyway, we're getting to the end of this story and the Cullens will end up being turned into vampires. I'd like your take on how the vampirization process should affect people with intersexed disorders. Venom can cure many things, but not all and I'm undecided regarding whether or not it would cure these kids. Each kid is different and unique, so venom could effect them differently; i.e. Edward's wee-wee might grow while Jasper remains unchanged. So your assignment is to think about each of the 5 Cullen kids and let me know whether they should:

A. Be female

B. Become slightly more female

C. Stay the same

D. Become slightly more male

E. Be male

Feel free to leave me specific details or go with the above multiple choice. I will go with the majority opinion on this and if no one gives an opinion, I'll just leave out what sex they are from the last few chapters...It'll be one of those stories where you're left wondering if Emmett is a boy or a girl.


	59. Chapter 58

Alice's POV:

Living with William and Tanya was like being in prison: everything I said and did was watched and analyzed. If I was the least bit sarcastic, I got a lecture on how to speak to adults. If I did not finish my broccoli for dinner, they knew and lectured me on the importance of eating a balanced diet. If I took an extra ten minutes in the bathroom, they asked if I was having digestive problems. If I was five minutes late coming home from school, they wondered what I had been up to during said five minutes. Even my clothes were scrutinized.

"You can't wear that over to Carlisle and Esme's house to see Jasper! It's too low cut; they'll think we're raising a prostitute!" William would say every time I submitted myself for inspection. He would find some problem with my outfit, no matter what I chose. Even a turtleneck was, "Too tight and shows too much of your curves."

William was not this bad when I was in the mental institution with him, but I swear he was going out of his way to make my life miserable so that I would appreciate how good I had it with the Cullens. He even went so far as to escort me over to their house and supervise my visits with my own family for the duration of my grounding. For five entire months he would not even let me alone with my mother.

Every time I complained about the overzealous supervision, William would just reply, "You should be counting your lucky stars that Tanya and I are still letting you see the Cullens. We could pack you up and take you with us to Alaska and feed you nothing but polar bear and seal young lady!"

I suspected that William's threats to take me away from the Cullens were hollow, because the Cullens were my family. Legally, it was Esme and Carlisle who were my parents and were responsible for me. But whenever I brought this up with Dad, he would say, "Sorry Alice. We agreed to give temporary guardianship of you to William and Tanya. If you behave, they may just decide that you're mature enough to come back home. I really hate that we had to resort to this, but you left your mother and me no choice."

So I was stuck living with Tanya and William and not even my psychic visions could get me out of it. All my visions would show me were ways to get myself over to the Cullens for visits, such as the, "I miss my mom and dad!" crying jag. Simply go to my room and start crying, profess to miss Esme and Carlisle when William or Tanya come in, and Viola, I am over at the Cullens within the hour.

The missing my family excuse works best on weekends, so I tended to resort to the, "Your food is inedible," excuse to get me across the river on school nights. Being vampires meant that neither Tanya nor William could cook, although they did do alright if they had a recipe and followed it to the letter. But I was not stupid enough to let them know that their food was preferable to chalk and they could not tell if I was lying or not about the taste. Everything tasted like chalk to them.

So I was able to get myself over to the Cullens for dinner most nights. And of course I always took the opportunity to both suck up to my mother and profess my hatred for vampire cooking while I was there. "Mommy your spaghetti is sooo good! It just tastes so much better than William's," I would say before leaning in to whisper even though I knew that William could still hear. "He puts too much salt in his and it burns my throat going down."

Of course I would have to change which spice was wrong every time. And if I said there was too much salt, the next week there would be no salt in the spaghetti at all. The same thing went for the other spices, but I just used this to my advantage. "Mom, this time William did not add any salt at all to the spaghetti. It tasted like tomato puree on a bed of flavorless mush," I would say.

And then there was the fact that Spaghetti was one of the few things William and Tanya ever tried to make. Their entire recipe collection consisted of Spaghetti, Macaroni and Cheese, Sandwiches, cereal, broccoli, and pop tarts. Needless to say I really was sick of their food and grateful for every meal I ate at the Cullens. Even cafeteria food was an improvement on the slop William and Tanya fed me; no wonder I lost ten pounds while being grounded those five months.

Truthfully, I was not even trying to maintain my weight and force the slop down. I had seen in a vision that if I lost weight it would increase my time over at the Cullen house. I was already thin, but not too thin, and I was still very short, so ten pounds on me was a lot. I started to look like a toothpick and Carlisle took one look at me and said that I needed to be brought over to the house at least once a day for feedings, which was exactly what I was going for.

Between mealtimes and weekends, I was over at the Cullens quite a bit, but it just was not enough for me, especially because every moment of it was supervised. William or Tanya, or both, were always with me every single second. And not only did they watch me like a hawk, but they also would not let me get too close to Jasper. Sexual activities in general were out; that was a given with all of the supervision. But to make matters worse, kissing and hand holding were outlawed as well.

"No kissing while you're grounded young lady. If you want to lock lips with lover boy you need to earn it," William would say, interrupting Jasper and me.

That grounding was the longest five months of my entire life. By the time it was over, I was in major Jasper and shopping withdrawals. Five months without kissing Jasper's soft lips or going to the mall? It is barbaric and inhuman. I did not even have my stocks to keep me company!

Not only had William taken away my family, but he had also taken away my credit cards, fake IDs, bank account, and stock market account. All of it was frozen or destroyed until I am deemed mature enough to handle them again. I could not even make another set of fake IDs, because the bloodsucking vampires were watching me so closely! Even if all I was doing was drawing a sketch on a piece of paper the duo would ask me what I was up to.

So I fully admit that I may have gone a little overboard with excitement when my grounding was finally over. William and Tanya let me free the day Jasper's eggs were harvested, so we spent the two months leading up to his surgery making up for lost time. It was really wonderful to be with Jasper again, alone, just the two of us. The saying really is true: I did not realize how much I had until it was taken away. That night I made a vow to myself to never take my husband for granted again.

Speaking of marriage, William and Tanya, and everyone else for that matter, were still completely in the dark about our secret wedding in Las Vegas. Holding my tongue while William and Tanya gave me talk after talk about how wrong premarital sex was proved harder than I would have thought. This was mostly due to the sheer volume of sex talks, as every time I came home from being with Jasper they had another talk waiting for me. They were a bit repetitive, but tended to focus on sexually transmitted diseases. I had no idea genital warts were so nasty!

Hearing all of those lectures and see all of those photos of STDs really made me want to come clean about my marriage, because the truth was that Jasper and I had never had premarital sex. We lost our virginity in Las Vegas the night of our wedding. But my visions showed me what a bad idea confessing this would be. Not only would admitting that we were already married not get me out of the sex talks, but it would also get me in more trouble. If William knew that I was married, my grounding would be extended indefinitely and he would insist on getting the marriage annulled. And since I had no desire to have my wedding annulled, because I loved my husband, I kept my mouth shut.

I was really happy with my marriage. Marrying Jasper has to be the best decision I have ever made in my life, although getting the Darwin away from my biological parents was a close second. The two of us get along splendidly and we were like to halves of a whole. The only disagreement we have had since I bought that car was regarding his surgery. I did not want him to have it, but he did.

Ultimately the issue came down to Jasper not being comfortable in his own skin. He did not like the female organs and it was his body. If he wanted to be all male, then as his wife, it was my job to stand by and support him. I was trying to show the world just how mature I was by being by Jasper's side and keeping my mouth shut, even though there was nothing I wanted more than for my husband to decide not to go through with this surgery.

Needless to say I was more than a little pleased with the sudden turn of events the morning of Jasper's surgery. I was through the roof with joy when Carlisle said he could not perform the surgery and that was before he even told us why. Once I learned that Jasper was pregnant with my baby, I was happier than I have ever been. There was only one small problem with the pregnancy: I could not see it.

This was the second pregnancy I had missed and I was beginning to wonder why I kept missing them. A pregnancy is a very important event in our lives and I would hope that I would see such things coming a mile ahead. Nothing was more life changing than a baby, so why was it that I had such trouble scrying our child? I could only think that the holes in my vision had something to do with miscarriage.

Jasper had miscarried the first baby, which was why I thought I had missed her. Now that he was definitely pregnant with baby number two and I still could not see him or her, I was deeply concerned that we might be in store for another tragedy. We wanted our baby more than anything in the world and I did not know if we would be able to survive another loss like the one in Las Vegas.

Jasper has suffered from depression on and off for years. Losing our first child was extremely hard on him and I had worried that he would fall into a depression so deep that he would never recover, but he had surprised me and pulled through it. He was stronger than I thought, but I had no way of knowing if he would be strong enough to pull through it a second time. I could not see that either.

My worry for his mental well-being was my main reason for refusing to try for another baby. I knew he wanted one and I wanted one too, but the risk of another miscarriage was just too great. I could not knowingly put my husband through that again. But now that he was pregnant again, fate had taken that choice out of our hands once more. And I had even insisted on using condoms! I had taken every precaution to prevent another pregnancy, and yet here we were, pregnant again. This baby must have been meant to be and now that we were definitely pregnant, all I could do was protect Jasper and our unborn child.

The only way I knew how to protect our baby was to tell my father of my concerns and ask him to keep Jasper in the hospital. Now that I knew what to look for, I could see Jasper spending the rest of his pregnancy on bed rest to make sure that our baby survives. And if I looked hard enough, I could just make out him holding a little bundle of pink flesh wrapped in a white blanket. Maybe we would get our happily ever after, after all.

When Carlisle announced that he was going to hold Jasper overnight for observation, I was both excited and resigned to spend the next seven months or so in this hospital. It was not until William walked in the door that I even considered what my new guardians would have a say about this turn of events. The first thoughts that went through my head were that he was going to make me leave the hospital or that he would not approve of the pregnancy.

I was surprised and upset when William revealed that he would be staying with us in order to supervise me for the entire time we were in the hospital. Finding out about a pregnancy was supposed to be a private time between a husband and a wife, not a time in which the wife's guardian insists on parental supervision. But at least he was happy about the baby.

True to his word, William never left us alone. If he did not spend the night with us, then Tanya did. And during the day, if he was not in the room with us, then Mom, or Dad, or someone else was. I began to appreciate the visits from our siblings more than anything, because at least with them, there would be no adults in the room when William left. But said visits were all too rare because it was over a four hour drive to this hospital from our house in Forks. So when Russell, Emmett, and Edward took me aside and told me that Henry had been asking to drop by and see Jasper, I jumped right on it as another chance to get away from William.

Of course I had to clear it with my husband first, but I was convinced that it was a good idea. I saw Jasper smiling while talking to his friend in my visions. He had already told Henry that he was having surgery this summer and would likely be out of commission until school started back up. And Henry already knew about Jasper's birth defect. But what Henry did not know was that Jasper had been the one to have the miscarriage and that the surgery had been canceled due to another accidental pregnancy.

I saw Henry handling the news well and not spilling the beans to everyone at school, so after our siblings left for the day, I told Jasper about Henry's request. It took some convincing to get Jasper to agree to see his friend, mostly because we were in the maternity ward, which meant there was no way he could hide the pregnancy and Henry would have to be told the truth. But eventually Jasper's desire to see his friend and have some contact with the outside world won out over his desire for secrecy.

So in July, almost a month after finding out about the pregnancy, Jasper called Henry up and invited him to come for a visit. Henry made the long drive to Seattle by himself and arrived just after lunch. When he called to say he was pulling into the parking structure, I went outside to greet him and show him to Jasper's room.

"Isn't this the maternity ward?" Henry asked as we entered Jasper's ward, which was decorated with storks carrying bundles of babies from their beaks.

"Yep. We're almost there," I answered, deflecting the question until Jasper was with me.

As Henry and I walked in, William walked out saying, "I'll just be in the waiting room," just like I was counting on.

"Hey Jasper," Henry greeted his friend, still confused over his location.

"Hi Henry, I'm glad you could make it. Being in the hospital is getting kind of boring," Jasper replied reaching out from his bed to hug Henry.

"You certainly have some bad luck. It seems you spend every summer vacation in the hospital," he teased back, returning the hug.

"I don't know… I think this time it's good luck that landed me in the hospital," Jasper replied smiling.

"Did the surgery go alright then?"

"No, I never had it."

"Then why're you still here? And why're you in the maternity ward?" Henry asked confused.

Jasper turned to me and took my hand, before answering, "We're pregnant. I'm here on bed rest."

"Congratulations!" Henry replied excitedly, but there was also confusion evident in his voice.

"Jasper's pregnant with my baby," I explained placing my hand on Jasper's growing baby bump. It was still small, but it was there.

"What?" Henry asked in shock, backing up until he found a chair to sit down in.

"Jasper is the one who had that miscarriage last fall," I revealed.

"No way," Henry replied, still in shock.

"Yes way. They couldn't remove my uterus because there was a baby inside it," Jasper said.

"How's that even possible?" Henry asked.

"Jasper isn't the only intersexed one in this relationship. Genetically I'm male and my body produces sperm," I admitted, squeezing Jasper's hand for support. This was the first time I had told someone outside of the family and the medical profession about me. I was scared to say it out loud, but I needed to be strong for Jasper right now so I was trying not to let it show.

"When? I mean how far along are you?" Henry asked breaking the silence that had engulfed the room after my confession.

"We're due in January. I'm three and a half months pregnant," Jasper replied touching his stomach delicately, in that way that all expectant mothers seem to do.

"Does that mean you'll have to stay in here until January?" Henry asked concerned.

"Pretty much. I keep having contractions, but if I stay here they can give me medication every time it happens. I don't want to lose this baby, so I have to stay on bed rest. Carlisle said that if I do okay, he'll let me go home and do my bed rest in my own bed once I get to the eight month mark," Jasper answered.

"What about school?" Henry asked.

"Well I'm just gonna have to miss it. I skipped two grades, so if I miss a year and have to do it next year, it's not a big deal. But Carlisle will probably make me keep up with my lessons at home like he did last year."

"I think you've missed more high school than anyone else in our grade."

"I'm also the youngest. I really don't care if I don't graduate with the rest of our class, just as long as the baby is healthy."

"What about you Alice? Are you gonna miss school too?" Henry asked me.

"William won't let me," I revealed. I had wanted to stay in the hospital with Jasper, but my new guardian would not tolerate me missing that much school. He said that I could spend the afternoons, evenings, and nights with Jasper, just as long as I went to school during the day. "He's gonna enroll me in a school in the city here so that I won't be so far away."

"How're you two gonna explain the baby then?" Henry asked curiously. "Last time everyone thought that you had the miscarriage Alice."

"We're gonna have to say the same thing. I'll wear a false tummy if we go back to Forks," I answered.

Of course I was still hoping that Mom and Dad would put a stop to William's sending me back to school plan. I was in the process of trying to convince Mom to home school me while Jasper is in the hospital. Or they could hire a tutor like they had done for Russell. But they had five children and a grandchild on the way to think about and the State had paid for Russell's tutor. If I still had my money and my stocks, I could pay for it myself, but I did not. Tanya and William had plenty of money to pay for it, but they did not want to. My current guardians were all about tuff love and making me behave like every other normal teenager and that meant high school.

"It'll be okay Alice," Jasper said comforting me.

I nodded and then took the opportunity to change the subject. I did not want to spend the day dwelling on how awful going to school in Seattle was going to be, so I started asking Henry about all of our friends. We spent the next several hours gossiping about Tyler, who had gotten in trouble for throwing a wild party at his house while his parents were out of town.

The visit with Henry went even better than I expected, but when the nurse brought Jasper's dinner in around five, Henry excused himself saying that he had to get going. And so my afternoon without adult supervision came to an end as William rejoined us.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Does it seem like Alice and Jasper are rushing the parenthood thing? This is their last chance to have a baby while human, because Maria is going to come for them soon...she just hasn't decided exactly when yet.<p> 


	60. Chapter 59

Jasper's POV:

I have been in the hospital for two and a half months now and was just past the five month mark in my pregnancy. My baby boy was doing well, but I had had several more episodes of premature labor, so I had to stay. Did I mention that he is a boy? Alice saw the ultrasound revealing a little boy, before we actually had it. For the first ultrasound, he was turned the wrong way and they could not be sure, but they had scheduled another and another, to check on his development, and last week he was finally turned the right way and the technician confirmed that we were having a boy. A baby boy! I was so happy it was almost surreal.

I did not think anything could bring me down after that ultrasound, but I was wrong, because although Alice was allowed to stay with me so far, that was about to end. School was starting and we would be separated all day. William, true to his word, had enrolled Alice at the local high school here in Seattle. She started her new school the week after Labor Day, but she was not the only one, because I started continuation school the same day.

Seattle was a big city and like all large cities, they had a few continuation schools for those teenagers who could not make it in a regular high school, but what I did not know was that a teacher from the continuation school came out to my hospital five days a week to teach those who were too sick to make it into class. And of course my aunt and uncle signed me up to attend, despite my protests.

I had no plans on graduating from a continuation school and I was none too happy about the idea. Not only would I have to waste my time doing school work when I wanted to be enjoying my pregnancy, but I would have to be wheeled into a room with a dozen other ill teenagers; one of them was bound to noticed that I was a pregnant dude eventually, which was not something I wanted getting out. Plus, I plan on taking the rest of the year off from school once my son is born, so there is no point starting something that there is no way I am going to finish. My due date was in January, after all.

I was not looking forward to continuation school one bit and that combined with it being my first day without Alice put me in a very bad mood. I was in such a bad mood that I almost felt sorry for Emmett when he showed up this morning saying that he was going to stay with me and help me get through my first day of class. He had enrolled at the University of Washington in Seattle and was preparing to start his first quarter in a couple of weeks, meaning that he was the only one of my siblings who was still out of school for the summer. Plus, he had to drive into the city sometime this week anyway to fill out some paperwork. And since he was free and already supposed to be in the area, he decided to come visit me.

"I drove all the way here yesterday, but it was already past visiting hours when I arrived, so I stayed the night at Tanya's place. She said that I can stay with them until school starts and I move into the dorms, so I can hold your hand while Alice is at school," Emmett proclaimed.

"What about Russell?" I asked keeping Emmett talking and hoping that he did not know that I was supposed to be wheeled to class this morning. I would much rather spend the day with my big brother than listening to some boring teacher. Besides, with my being in Seattle, I had not seen much of my siblings in months.

"Russell's busy with school. I'll just go home Friday nights, same as when school starts. He understands," Emmett answered.

"Cool. If you're gonna be here all day, then maybe I could get you to run across the street and buy Chinese food for lunch. I'm so sick of hospital food."

"Sure, I can go when we get back from your class. Now which button am I supposed to press when you're ready for the nurse to come and wheel your bed down the hall?" he asked looking at all of the buttons on the rail of my bed.

I groaned and thought, 'Great, he does know I'm supposed to go to class today.'

"Dad said to call you Jazz and to tell the other kids that you're just a really ugly girl," he said ignoring my groans and pressing the correct button, even though I had not answered him.

"Nurse's Station," my bed answered.

"Jasper's ready to go to class now," Emmett spoke into the microphone, leaning over me to do so.

"Someone'll be right in to help him," the nurse replied.

"Em, I don't wanna go to class!" I complained as soon as I heard the click, indicating the nurse had hung up.

"You have to finish high school Jasper. You don't want my nephew to have a high school dropout for a father, do you?"

"No, I'll finish next year."

"But next year you're gonna be busy with the baby and won't have time," he countered.

"But next year I'll be able to go back to my real school."

"Maybe. But think of it this way, if you finish half of the school year while you're pregnant, then you'll only have half to finish once the baby comes. Then you can stay home a full year."

I did not get a chance to respond to that, because that was when my nurse came in and started messing with my IV. A moment later a second nurse came in and then the pair of them wheeled my bed to the classroom, with Emmett following close behind. As they wheeled, I grabbed my blankets and tried to use them to disguise my baby bump. I already had one blanket on and there were two more at the foot of my bed, but even with all three I could still see the bump. My only hope was that everyone else was not going to be looking so hard and would just think I was fat.

They parked my bed, while I was still fussing with my blankets and Emmett pulled up a chair. There was a lot of commotion in the room from all of the other students being wheeled in by their nurses, so Emmett took the time to introduce himself to my new teacher. He was so cheerful and happy as he spoke that I wanted to slap him.

Once all of the nurses left, the teacher began the typical beginning of the year introductions. Or at least that was what I assumed he was doing, but I was busy daydreaming. In my fantasy I was already holding my newborn son and Alice was telling me how perfect he was. He was a little pink bundle wrapped in a blue blanket, but I could see his jet black hair and his tiny fingers were reaching out for me. Alice and I kissed in my imagination and then I started thinking about her soft pink lips and how they felt against mine.

"Earth to Jasper," Emmett interrupted my thoughts, waving a composition book in front of me. "Did you listen to any of that?"

"Nope," I replied, trying to discourage him from his efforts to make me work.

"Well I did. Everyone's supposed to start with math. Here's your composition book to write your answers in and this is your math book," he said handing me the composition book and holding up an algebra book.

"Haha, very funny," I replied, brushing off the insult. I would be in calculus today if I was at my regular school.

"Yeah, I know. But you took algebra in middle school so you could get away with it," he replied opening the book to the first chapter.

"I'd rather have a root canal," I protested. "What's the teacher's name anyway?"

"Mr. Nguyen," Emmett answered.

So I raised my hand and called Mr. Nguyen over, before explaining that I was in calculus, not algebra.

"We don't have calculus in continuation school," Mr. Nguyen replied.

"Then I've finished math. Give me something else," I insisted.

Mr. Nguyen pulled out a biology book, so I of course had to explain that I had already taken AP Biology and was in AP Physics, but this school was also lacking in AP physics, explaining why I moved onto English so quickly. I read a super easy book and aced a multiple choice test about it. Then I read a chapter on economics and took a test on that. And finally came art class, which was the only challenging class of the day. One half-assed painting later and I was free to go.

Two nurses wheeled me back to my room, and again, Emmett followed. "I've never seen someone finish class this early before," one of my nurses commented as they messed with my bed.

"I'm a senior and that teacher was only prepared to teach freshmen," I replied, still angry about the fact that I had been forced to attend their wannabe school.

"Be nice Jasper," Emmett scolded me as the nurses left. He was starting to remind me of Esme.

"Why?" I asked defensively.

"Because they're just trying to help you. I'm not gonna be here every day so you're gonna have to start cooperating," he replied.

"I don't wanna go."

"Fine, I give up. Let's just do something else until Alice gets back from school," he suggested.

"Like what? There's nothing to do in this place," I said rudely. I knew I should not be so rude to my brother and I really did love him, but I was in such a bad mood that I could not help it.

"We could play a board game," he suggested.

"Alice and I already played all the games they have a million times," I replied, trying not to be rude about it, but failing.

"You must be really tired of being stuck in this room."

"Yeah."

"I've got an idea: there's a little courtyard in the middle of the hospital. If you can wheel your bed to class, maybe you can wheel your bed outside."

"I wish," I said thinking about how much I missed feeling the sun on my skin and the wind blowing through my hair.

"Then it's settled: we'll go outside," he declared before setting off to convince my nurses to cut me loose.

It took Emmett at least an hour, but eventually he did succeed in convincing the nurses to let me go outside. Only they did not let me go all of the way to the courtyard. Instead they transferred me to a wheelchair and wheeled me out to a balcony, along with my IV and baby heart rate monitor. Emmett brought a board game with him and the two of us actually had a really good time enjoying the outdoors. We stayed outside until lunch time, when Emmett left to go pick up Chinese food and my nurses wheeled me back inside and transferred me back to my bed. I wanted to walk, but as always, they refused.

After lunch, Emmett filled me in on all of the gossip going on back in forks, while we played yet another board game. He was just telling me about how Edward got caught kissing Seth in his bedroom last weekend, when Alice, with William in tow, returned.

"Thanks for keeping him company Em," Alice said flitting to my side, while William took his usual seat in the corner.

"You're welcome, but I should get going, because I still have to drop my forms off at the University before it closes," he replied before giving me a hug and leaving.

"How was your new school?" I asked Alice as she climbed into my bed with me.

"It was okay. It's a really big school so no one really noticed me," she answered.

"No one talked to you all day?"

"Well one girl said hello and asked me about myself during lunch. I told her that my guardians moved to Seattle over the summer so that I could be closer to my pregnant boyfriend," she teased. She had to use the term boyfriend, instead of husband, because William was in the room.

"You did not!" I accused her and she started giggling. "What'd you really say?"

"I said I got kicked out for stealing the car and going on a joyride, so my parents sent me to go live with their relatives in Seattle," she admitted.

"You sound like a bad girl," I teased her.

"Yep. And just think how bad I'm gonna sound once she finds out that I knocked up my totally hot boyfriend."

"You better not, Alice!" I warned.

"Alice, don't you think you should start on your homework before dinner?" William asked, interrupting our playful discussion.

I could tell that Alice wanted to argue, but given that William was a vampire and he was letting her practically live in the hospital with me, she must have thought better of it. Instead of protesting, she grumbled as she climbed out of my bed and retrieved her backpack from where she had left it on the floor. She pulled out her homework and sat down in the chair next to me and asked, "What about you Jazz? Didja get any homework today?"

"No, hospital school's a joke. It lasted two hours and then Emmett and I spent the whole day playing board games," I said leaning over to see what Alice had for homework.

"Well then you can help me with mine," she offered turning to the correct page in her math book.

Alice was a sophomore and she was in geometry, which is almost as easy as algebra, so I spent the rest of the afternoon helping her with math, before moving onto her history homework. Then we had dinner and spent the evening watching television, just as we did every night in the hospital. It was becoming so repetitive that I would kill to get to go home or do something new for a change.

At least Emmett came every day for two and a half weeks. If it were not for him, I probably would have died of boredom a lot sooner. But now he was in University and could only visit me once during the week and on weekends and Alice was still away at school all day. William and Tanya started coming around more during the day to keep me company, but I was mostly living vicariously through Alice.

Alice has always been a bit of a trouble maker in school, because she was the class clown. She liked to make jokes and draw funny cartoons of her teachers instead of doing her work and paying attention, which was why I was always helping her catch up- it was not because she was dumb, because she was actually really smart. She just was used to more one on one attention, so she would act out to get it.

Back in Forks, the school and town were so small that everyone came in with the preconceived notion that the Cullen kids were weird and that Alice was the weirdest of us all, so she had not made any friends. But here, in Seattle, there were a lot of artsy-type kids and they had noticed some of Alice's caricatures of the teachers and thought that they were really funny, so she had finally made friends and joined a clique at school. But even though she had made friends, she had not told them most of the details of her life. She told them that she had a boyfriend who was sick and in the hospital, but she did not tell them why I was here.

Every time someone asked Alice what was wrong with me, she told them a lie. The only problem was that she kept forgetting the lie and telling different stories. She told one girl that I had cancer and another that I had mono. She told the boy sitting next to her in world history that I was in a motorcycle accident and broke all of the bones in my body and she wrote an essay for English that detailed my struggle with malaria, after we had visited Brazil on vacation over the summer.

Needless to say, the other kids were starting to notice and kept asking her what was really going on with me, even though Alice had only been at the school a month. And then Alice accidently let slip that we were pregnant. "I was talking to Erica in P.E. and she started talking about her older sister that's pregnant. She said that they just found out that the baby is a boy and I slipped up. All I said was, 'Me too,' but then she asked, 'Me too what?' I tried to say that my older brother Emmett was pregnant and it was a boy, but I already told her that he's with a guy named Russell. And she knew Edward's gay! And then I tried to say my parents were pregnant, but I told her they adopted me because they couldn't have kids," she told me when she got home from school that day.

"Calm down Alice. Just breathe," I told her reassuringly. "Then what happened?"

"Well she had me backed into a corner so I had to admit that the baby was mine. I told her my baby is a boy and I was hoping to name him Jasper Jr. after you. She thought that I was pregnant, so I just went with that."

"So she doesn't know that I'm pregnant? You're so thin, how can you be the pregnant one?"

"I didn't tell her I was six months! She thought I just found out or something. But she told the whole class that I am. And then another kid, John I think, started asking about you. He must have put together that I was lying about why you were in the hospital and the baby and he just wouldn't let it go."

"Well what did you say?"

"Well then Stacy asked if your parents beat you and I denied it. But then John, he's such a loud-mouthed know-it-all I hate him. Well anyway, he asked if _my_ parents beat you up for having sex with me. He knew that I've had a couple sets of parents, because I'm adopted."

"And?"

"Anyway, a vision hit right when he asked and when I didn't answer right away everyone assumed that he was right. Then Lacey asked if that was why I had changed parents too, because they didn't believe that I had stolen a car and gone on a joy ride, like I said. And in the vision I just said yes and they believed that lie. So I said yes and by my last class, everyone in the entire school was saying that I got pregnant over the summer and my real parents found out last month and freaked and beat up my boyfriend, landing you in the hospital. They had different rumors regarding why you were still here, a whole month later, like you almost died because the beating was so bad, and Mr. Jones had to order everyone to stop talking about me and get back to work," she finished, burying her hands in her face. "It was awful."

"Okay, but why were you all talking during P.E anyway?"

"Raining, again. This is Seattle. I don't even know why they plan baseball for the first six weeks of school when they know it's gonna rain like every day in September and October."

"I didn't know it was raining today," I replied dejectedly, wishing I could have gone outside. Even the rain would be better than being stuck in here.

"Well at least they didn't figure out that you're preggers. They think that _I'm_ the one with the baby inside of me. Now I'm gonna have to drop out of school or they'll know I lied again. What if Mom and Dad make me go back to Forks and leave you here with William?"

"They wouldn't do that," I said horrified. If I lost Alice I would go crazy in here.

"Well I didn't tell William what happened when he came to pick me up, but he knows I had a bad day. It's only a matter of time before the school calls him and asks him what's going on with me," Alice said just before William walked in.

Alice and I both suddenly stopped talking, but it was too late. "You know, I do have super-sensitive hearing. I could hear you all the way from the waiting room where I was trying to give you two some privacy," William revealed.

"You were listening to us? What part of privacy involves eavesdropping?" Alice asked indignantly.

"The part where I don't trust you and was only appearing to give you two some privacy," William replied. "Now if they think you're pregnant at school, I'll have to get you transferred to another. You're going to have to work on your lying young lady, because you'll never make it through the semester if you keep getting caught in your lies this quick. It's barely been a month."

"That's it? I don't have to go back to Forks?"

"Not as long as Jasper's here and that baby's not due for another four months. If you don't work on your lying though, we'll have to start home-schooling you," he replied.

So in the end everything worked out fine and Alice was just over reacting. William switched her to a new school, but Seattle was filled with dozens of high schools, so she would have a few more chances. I am not sure how she did not see that one coming, but she must have been so stressed out with everything else that she missed it. She had a lot more on her plate, between school and being by my side, and worrying about the baby's future, so she was always stressed these days. It was only me that was bored; stories of her escapades at school were the only entertainment I had stuck here in the hospital day in and day out.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: So far the consensus seems to be to leave the kids as they are, but make Russell a little more Rosalie.<p> 


	61. Chapter 60

Jasper's POV:

I did not know it then, but I was closer to being released from the hospital than the doctors, Carlisle, and Alice had predicted. I was only on bed rest for one more week after Alice changed schools. I do not know how I managed to make it through those four months of tedium while stuck in the hospital, but I did. I just kept clinging to the hope that if I behaved and did everything the doctors said that I would get to go home with my son. I really wanted my first baby back and to have that little girl, but I also wanted this boy and I just could not lose him too. But I did.

I was still six months pregnant when I went into labor again; I was almost six and a half. They could not stop my contractions and Carlisle was even called in. They could not give me the same drug as last time, because it would damage the baby's lungs. I had not had contractions this bad in two months and the last time his lungs had not been developing yet, so they could give it to me. But this time they said that he had a better chance of survival if they just delivered him early.

The medical community had made wonderful advancements in the NICU. Most babies born three months prematurely survived now. My son was almost four months early, but still, many babies born that early were viable now. They had sterile rooms to prevent infections and tubes to breathe for him and a light to warm him and everything. Carlisle showed me little Jasper hooked up to all of those machines when I woke up. They had given me a pain reliever that made me pass out, or I do not think I would have missed his birth for the world.

At least Alice was there to witness Jasper's birth and they did take pictures for me. And he was still alive when I woke up. I even got to hold him, although not right away, because it was two weeks before Carlisle said I could hold him. He looked so tiny and weak at first, but he was putting on weight and he looked better. We really thought he was going to make it.

But then Jasper got sick. Sometimes I wonder if I got him sick by holding him. Did I introduce him to the bacteria that infiltrated his lungs? Did Alice when she held him? Did we not wash enough? We scrubbed up, just like Carlisle showed us, but still, I could not help but wonder if it was my fault somehow. But either way, Carlisle came in and told me he had a fever just days before his one month birthday.

Jasper was a survivor, Alice and I were sure of it. He held on and fought off that infection for weeks and we even thought he was getting better for a little while. We really did hope that we would be able to take him home one day, but Alice could not see that. She could not see anything; she had always said she never saw us with this baby and she did not see us losing him until the end. Maybe she could not see that, because it was just too painful. He had almost made it. He was seven weeks old, but then he was gone. His fever peaked and he stopped breathing and they just could not bring him back.

Alice and I had little Jasper cremated and spread his ashes in our spot in the forest, just as we had done with our first baby. Only this time, there were a lot more ashes and we had a real funeral, but with just the family. The whole town of Forks knew that we were coming back after losing another baby, but it was still a private moment and we were not ready to share our son yet. We showed his pictures to our friends eventually, but for the first six months we just stayed in the Cullen house and mourned.

In hindsight, a lot of time passed without me realizing it. The time had passed so much slower in the hospital and I had been dreaming about the day that I would get out and go outside again. But now that I was out, I had no baby, and my desire for life was gone too. I did not want to do anything, let alone go outside and enjoy life. I barely made it to my therapy appointments, because I was so depressed. There is nothing worse than losing two children. Trust me, I know.

But, with all things, time passed and time heals all wounds. Or if not heals, then maybe it fades them, because I do not think I will ever heal from that loss. I gave up my hope when I lost Jasper and I had no hope that I would ever heal. But Alice was hurting too and I could not take my life, because she was more ready than ever to join me.

For the first time ever, Alice was actually suicidal too. She was even dealing with it worse than me, because I had been through it before. I knew how to go through the motions, even if I could not bring myself to care. This was my fourth major bout of depression, but it was her first, and I had to be strong for her, so I did not cut myself and I went to therapy every day. As long as she could see us getting through one more day together, she held off on her plans, knowing that I absolutely would not make it without her. She could not bear to think that I would follow her and I could not bear to think that she would follow me, so we both kept on existing.

Alice and I existed, but we did not live for a long time. Time passed, but I do not really remember it. It was like I was living in a fog, a thin shell of a life, like a brain-dead zombie. I remember thinking about little Jasper and about killing myself, but I also remember thinking, 'Just one more day, for Alice.' And then I would think, 'If I can just get her through this, then I can end my life in peace, because she would go on.' And that was how I got through those months.

And as time passed, another thought occurred to me, 'What about those eggs we have in storage? If Alice and I died, they would never be born.' And I really wanted my child to be born and live. Even if I had lost two children, I began to hope that it would be like Alice and Carlisle had said: another woman would be implanted with my children and bring them to full term.

Alice noticed right away when I thought that thought about living. "What're you thinking about?" she asked me. She never asked me that anymore, because she always knew my answer would be our son or the easiest way to die, so she did not ask. But now, she asked.

"Nothing," I replied, not yet ready to talk about it.

It was another month before I got up the courage to tell her, but she already knew by then. It was the first week of June. "You want to try again, for another baby, don't you?" she asked me the morning I had finally decided to tell her.

"Yes," I admitted. "But I can't take another loss. We need to do it Carlisle's way next time."

"But we're not eighteen yet. I won't be sixteen for another two months. It'll be at least two years before he agrees to help us. I'll have to finish high school."

"You'll have to go back. You need to go to summer school," I replied.

Alice had managed to complete a quarter of the year before Jasper was born. Neither of us had been back to school, but Esme, Tanya, and William kept trying to home school us the whole year. I just kept staring at my work, unable to concentrate, so they had begun to accept that I was not going to be able to get anymore school done this school year. But, I still pushed Alice to do her work.

Alice was no more capable of concentrating than I was, but the adults thought that she could do it and were pushing her harder. And I thought she could do it too, so I helped her with her work every day. It still was not much, but she had managed to finish another quarter of a year's worth of work, although it did take her seven months to do so. She would need to make up the classes she missed in summer school so that she could start her junior year next year. She would probably have to take summer school next year two. If not, she would never finish in time.

I, on the other hand, only had one year left before the pregnancy and I had managed to finish half a year of three classes while I was in the hospital. They thought that I would be able to finish the entire year of English, Economics slash government, and art before my due date. But then Jasper was born early and I never got any further. If I went back to school in the fall, then I would finish within a year and still have a light class load.

"Yeah, I know," she said sadly. "I'm almost ready."

"What's stopping you?"

"You. You won't be there with me and I'm worried that you'll change your mind while I'm gone."

"I won't," I promised, hoping that that statement would clear up the future.

But Alice was still not positive of the future. She still saw that there was something yet to be decided. "I have another three weeks left before summer school starts. Don't worry, we'll figure it out," she reassured me.

It took me almost my entire allotted time before I figured it out and the future cleared up. Two weeks later Alice finally saw that I really would be fine and she agreed to leave me to go to school. She was not happy about what I had decided, but I had decided to live, so she was happy about that.

I wanted the surgery. If I could not have my children in my own body, then I at least wanted the outside of my body to match how I felt on the inside. My brain was male and I wanted to be a normal man. I had already scheduled that surgery before, but it had fallen from my mind when I found out about Jasper. Now, I would have the surgery. I would have the vagina removed and a set of testicles created in its place.

Alice did not want me to have the surgery, but like I said, she did like that I was no longer depressed. I had a life to look forward to and she was certain I would live. I would live for the children I would have and I would make it that long by having the surgery. By the time Carlisle has it reapproved and rescheduled and I heal, we will be eighteen and ready for another baby.

"You know that means you'll have to take summer school too, don't you?" she asked me later that day.

"What? No, I'm almost done with school," I protested.

"You'll have the surgery over Christmas break, because Carlisle won't be able to schedule it over the summer, so you've got no choice. You'll have to take calculus and physics over the summer, or you won't finish school in time either."

"But they don't offer AP physics over the summer."

"You'll have to take regular. You can take half a semester of AP chemistry during the fall as your elective, but if you want the surgery, you have to take regular physics."

"What about school in the hospital? I wasn't even trying before and they gave me twelve credits."

"Yeah but you need twenty eight more to graduate. You'll have to take more art if you skimp on the science."

"Ew, not art. I'll take the summer school. Let's go sign up," I caved.

Esme was shocked when we told her, but she was not one to argue about her children going back to school. "Let me get this straight: I need to drive you two to the high school to sign up for summer school right now, because this is the last day to sign up and you two have suddenly changed your minds and want to go?" she asked.

"Yep," Alice replied.

"And you two are suddenly not suicidal today?" she asked wearily.

"Nope. We want to live and we want to finish high school first. Sign us up."

"And this can't wait until the fall?"

"Nope. We need summer school or we'll never finish," Alice replied.

"Okay, I'll do it but you both have to tell Dr. Flynn why," she replied, grabbing her purse.

I nodded, but I managed to worm myself out of a meeting with Dr. Flynn by explaining my reasoning to Carlisle that afternoon when he came home early from work. "I've decided I want to live. I want to have that gender change operation we talked about before." I was not ready to say before what out loud, but I was making progress. "But Alice sees that if I have the surgery, I won't finish school next year. So, we're both going to summer school. Can you schedule me for surgery?"

Carlisle was also shocked, but he recovered quickly. "So if I schedule the surgery I already agreed to, you'll both go back to school?"

"Yes," I replied, squeezing Alice's hand.

"Jasper, you know I have the philosophy that function, not appearance is what is important in genitalia. I had hoped you'd forgotten about the surgery. Are you sure you still want it? That is a major decision, because there's no taking it back," he warned.

I agreed with him, most of the way, but I just did not think the draw backs outweighed the benefits. "I still won't be a eunuch afterwards, right? My penis will still work?" I asked. If this surgery were going to leave me a eunuch, then I would not have it. But I would still have the penis. It was just that my penis would be my only functional sex organ after this was done.

"Almost assuredly. There's some chance of death from anesthesia, but no more than is always involved whenever anyone goes under."

"I still see it working," Alice assured me. I knew she still did not want it, because she grimaced when she said this and I felt the loathing for the subject, but she had agreed.

And since the surgery would not leave me asexual, I told my uncle to go ahead and schedule it. It was scheduled for the Monday morning after school let out for our winter break. The surgery was kind of a big deal, because I was having a lot done, so it would take a long time and I would be recovering in the hospital for a week before I would be allowed to go home.

I was having both ovaries, both fallopian tubes, my uterus, and my vagina removed. And in return, I was getting a set of prosthetic testes added. Carlisle said that my ball sack would look weird, even if they tried to wrinkle the skin they were using for it, but at least I would have balls. I was the only kid in my family without a set.

To give my new balls the most sensation possible, Carlisle was planning on using my pussy lips to make the pouch of skin. It was not ideal, because labial skin does not have quite the same texture and was low on hair, but the only other choice was to take my foreskin. I was very attached to my foreskin and I had no plans to part with anymore genitalia than absolutely necessary, so I chose the labial option. It seemed a bit ironic to me that the one female organ that I had cut was the one I would be keeping, and the scar I had made would be featured front and center in my new set of balls. But repurposing the hated skin seemed like the best option available, so that was the plan.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: So I know at least one of you was hoping for Jasper Jr. to make it, but I came up with the idea for this story last year when I was really sick and not in the mood for a happy fluffy ending. You can take solace in the knowledge that Jasper and Alice will get to use those frozen embryos once they are vampires.<p> 


	62. Chapter 61

Jasper's POV:

That summer passed quickly, because I was extremely busy. I had three summer school classes and a ton of doctor's appointments to keep. Carlisle ran all of these tests before, but now he had to rerun them, because I had grown and my body was larger than it was last year, plus I had had a baby. He had to make sure I was healthy and that everything was in the same place and confirm the surgery plans with all of my doctors, all over again.

And then it was fall again and I was enrolled in high school. I finished my last six months of high school, but it was not how I had pictured it. Russell and Edward were gone, having graduated last year. Alice and I came out of our depression just in time to see them walk, but it was a little weird that time had passed for them, while we were still stuck in the same place. They were in Seattle with Emmett now going to university.

Alice and I were the only two left at home, but that was not as bad as it sounds. Esme had more time to cook us pie and dote on us; she was just so happy to have us back that she let us do whatever we wanted now. Alice was back in my room and we did not even have to go to the garage to have sex anymore. William did never said anything about it anymore and he and Tanya were even considering a trip back to Alaska.

But the new family dynamic at home was not the only thing that was different. Not only were all my old friends gone and graduated, but I was not even in the advanced classes anymore. I was not even in regular classes anymore. I was not even at Forks high anymore. William had to drive me an hour to Port Angeles every day to take me to the continuation high school there, because Forks high was teaching the fall curriculum and I needed the spring.

If I was a junior, then they had a class for the seniors who had failed last year that I could have taken. But when seniors fail, they are sent to the continuation school to finish. It was like the hospital school, in that there was one teacher assigned to just seven of us and trying to teach us each seven different things, but this school was bigger and had more courses available. I was even in a class with kids just like me: they were all seniors who had gotten sick or injured and missed too much school to finish.

My new friends were all older than me; they were all between the ages of eighteen and twenty, while I was still sixteen. And they were not honors kids, but they were the six smartest students in this school, besides myself. Most of the adults here were the stupid kids who had flunked out of school and had decided to go back twenty years later. Most of the classes were filled with single mothers and forty year old recovering drug addicts, but not mine.

My class was reserved for kids who were normal kids and would have graduated already, if not for extenuating circumstances. We all had only spring semester left and several of our courses were the same, such as physics, English, government, and art, but I was the only one taking calculus and AP chemistry. In fact, this school did not even offer AP chemistry and I was the first student they have ever had who had made it all of the way to calculus. For those classes, I was going to the local community college.

The community college was not far from the continuation school, so William would pick me up at noon, take me to get lunch, and then drive me over to calculus on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and chemistry on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Class only lasted an hour and then we would be back on the road for the trip back home to Forks. It took another hour to get home, so I typically finished all of my homework in the car. And several times a week I had doctor's appointments in Port Angeles, so William would just take me over to the hospital after school on those days.

I did not get a ceremony, like Russell, Edward, and Emmett had had, but at least I did get to finish high school. My diploma was in the mail. The worst part was that Alice and I were separated all day while she was at school, but I knew that we both needed to finish school, so I managed to get through it. I just kept looking forward to my surgery, which was scheduled for mid-December. If I could just make it to December, then it would all be over. Sure I would be in the hospital for a while recovering, but Alice would be off on break and able to stay with me. Then I would go home to finish recovering and she would be home by three to be with me.

Well that was how I thought my life would work out. Alice had seen it that way, but what she had not seen was Maria's reaction to my surgery. I was barely awake from the surgery when I heard the phone in my room ringing. "Shh, go back to sleep Jazz. I'll get it," Alice said, reaching over to the phone.

I tried to obey Alice. My chest felt heavy and my eyelids would not stay open and it just hurt all over, but I could not help over hearing what Alice was saying on the phone. Well I only heard one work really. "Peter?" I heard her ask. There were other words too, but I did not catch them.

"Peter?" I managed to mumble out, reaching for the phone.

"Jasper? Are you alive little bro?" I heard the strangely musical voice ask as Alice put the phone to my ear.

I did not recognize this voice for Peter's, but still I answered, "Yeah."

There was a pause, but it was not a silent pause. I heard the snarling of an angry lion and the tinkling of bells. After a while I began to recognize the bells as a voice and I was convinced they were telling the lion to calm down. My brain was a little fuzzy from the surgery so a conversation between bells and a lion did not sound ridiculous at the time.

"Jasper, are you dying?" the lion finally snarled out, in a calmer tone of voice.

"No," I replied.

"Then why're you in the hospital?" the lion asked in between grunts and screams and snarls.

"Who is this?" I asked.

"It's Peter," the musical voice replied back, but then snarled again.

"What happened to you?"

"What happened to me? What happened to you? Maria thinks you're dying! She came and got me and Charlotte from our dorm and took us to Washington to save you. We're right outside your window, watching you die little brother."

"I'm fine. I just had a little surgery. I'm tired," I replied, yawning and drifting off.

I think I was asleep, but I was having a strange dream. In my dream Alice was there and a sparkly feline version of Peter was peaking in from my window. She put down the phone and opened the window and they continued their argument in person.

"What'd Maria do to you?" Alice asked.

"Nothing. She just thinks Jasper's dying and she sent me to save him."

"Jasper isn't dying. He had a little surgery and he's still out of it. He'll be fine tomorrow and they'll let him go home within the week. Where's Charlotte?"

"She's in the forest. She can't quite control herself yet."

"What are you gonna do now?"

"He really is fine?"

"Yes. It was just a little thing to fix his balls."

"But he's been in the hospital so much in the past few years. We were certain that this was the end."

"No. He was pregnant twice, but he didn't want to get pregnant again and miscarry again, so he got that organ removed and they added some prosthetic balls. He'll be fine soon, I promise."

"But we've been waiting for him."

"How long have you been waiting? Your eyes are dark red Peter."

"Maria came and got us after he was in the hospital in Las Vegas. I wanted to come to him then, but I couldn't control myself yet. Charlotte still struggles."

"What about your family? Why didn't anyone tell us you were…?" dream Alice trailed off.

"They don't know. I had a fight with Hank the year I went off to school and I haven't talked to him since. Grandma and Grandpa still call me twice a year, but they're so deaf now they don't notice the change."

"What about coming home for summer break? Surely they'd notice the difference in person."

"No, I haven't been home. I told them I had to work."

"And Charlotte's family? What do they think?"

"They're dead. Accident."

"Dead?"

"I don't wanna talk about it! Tell Jazz we're going back to Texas. If this was all just a misunderstanding then we have to report back to Maria. He's not ready yet."

"Does she still want him?"

"Yes, she wants you too."

"You don't have to go. You could stay."

"No, the others are nearby. They only let me pass because he's my brother. I have to go now. I love you Jasper," the rainbow ghost Peter said before flying out the window.

"Sleep now Jazz. Everything will be okay when you wake up," dream Alice told me after closing the window. And it was.

When I woke up, I had no memory of the odd conversation with Peter and Alice did not mention it. It was not until months later, when I heard his voice again, that I remembered the dream in the hospital and the phone call.

"Jasper?" the musical voice asked when I answered my cell phone. The caller ID said the call was from Peter's cell. I had not even had a chance to say hello.

"Peter?" I asked, suddenly remembering.

"Why are you in the hospital again?" he demanded with a snarl.

"It's just an outpatient procedure. They did all of the major parts of the surgery last time, but they had to let it heal before they could finish. Today I get the testicular prosthetics implanted and then everything will look like a dude down there; like it's supposed to be."

"Why'd you agree to all of that? You're driving me crazy with having to follow you!"

"Why are you following me?"

"Because Maria can't get through the line of vampires and werewolves you've got guarding you."

"What?"

"Edward's boy toy and his pack have you guarded from the west and the south. Those Alaskan vampires Carlisle hangs out with have you guarded from the east and the north. Maria can't get through and I can only get by because you're my brother."

"Why's she still watching me? I thought that was all over."

"No, she still wants you and Alice too."

"Does Alice know?"

"Yes."

"Then why hasn't she said anything to me."

"She said something about two miscarriages and depression."

"Oh."

"Will you come with me?"

"What? Why?"

"Maria'll punish me if I don't bring you back with me this time."

"Why are you even still with her?"

"You don't understand," he growled.

"You're right- I don't. Tell me, please."

"There's more to being a vampire than just being super smart and fast. There are other vampires too. Maria has Charlotte and if I don't come back with you, she'll kill her."

"She'll kill me and Alice if you do."

"No, she'll change you."

"How long do you have?" I asked, staring at the clock. Alice was at school and would not be back until three, so I would have to wait until then to ask her what we should do. The clock read ten forty-four, which meant I had just over fifteen minutes left before Carlisle came back. He had left me to scrub up and when he returns he would be ready to do the surgery.

"A week."

"I'll be home by two and Alice will be home by three. Call me after three and I'll tell you what we decide."

"Please think about it brother. If Charlotte and I had you with us, then maybe we could form our own coven and leave Maria. I love you Jasper," Peter said.

"I love you too Peter," I said before hanging up.

I had a lot to think about as I waited for my surgery and I did not even get close to deciding what I was going to do about Peter before Carlisle came back in with my anesthesiologist. They put me to sleep and the next thing I remembered was waking up in recovery with a horrible pain between my legs. It was already noon. Carlisle took me home just two hours later and then I only had one more hour after that to wait until Alice came back.

While I was waiting for Alice, something occurred to me: she had talked to Peter before. She knew he was a vampire and she probably knew what was going on with him; she was the psychic after all. How could she not know? And if she knew, why did she not tell me? He was my brother, so I should be the first one to know.

By the time Alice finally walked through the door, I was certain that she had been hiding what was going on with Peter from me. "How'd it go Jazz?" she asked me when she came in and put her backpack down. "Are you feeling alright?"

"It hurts, but not nearly as bad as last time," I replied, trying to think of a way to bring the conversation around to Peter.

"What's wrong Jazz? I feel angry."

"I am angry. It feels like you're lying to me about something."

"No, not really. I've been preoccupied all day looking for a vision, but I haven't been able to see."

"A vision of what?" I asked, trying to stay calm.

"Of Peter. I caught a glimpse of him earlier, but I couldn't make anything out. I think he's been thinking about you. I thought he might call today, but I guess not. Maybe he'll call tomorrow."

"He did call today."

"Well? What'd he say?"

"The funny thing is that it wasn't what he said, but what I remembered when I heard his voice: I remembered him calling before, the last time I was in the hospital," I said and Alice zoned off into a vision. It was several minutes before she came back to me.

"I was debating whether to tell you last week. Remember when I asked you if you were sure you wanted to finish the surgery this week?" she asked me and I nodded.

"But why didn't you tell me before?"

"When you woke up you were really out of it. There was nothing you could've done until after you recovered a bit. You could've taken off last week, but then you wouldn't get to finish the surgery. We'll go next week: we have plenty of time still."

"Why didn't you tell me when he was changed?"

"I didn't see that. I barely knew Peter; I certainly wasn't looking for him."

"When did you first know?"

"When he called you after your surgery: I could hear it in his voice and then I looked for his future and I saw that he was just outside the window, watching us."

"You didn't know until after my surgery?"

"Yes. I didn't know until he decided to call you. I couldn't see.

"He was watching me at the hospital before, when…"

"I couldn't see anything with little Jasper around. I never saw him. He never decided."

"Peter and Charlotte will be alright?"

"Yeah. We'll go to them next week and save them. Are you ready to be vampires too?"

"Yes. We have to go help him."

"We will, but first you need to rest. You'll never make it to Texas otherwise," she said and I listened.

I took a nap and was awoken when Peter called a few hours later. We informed him that we would need that week to make arrangements and then we would go to Texas with him to save Charlotte. We would slip away without our parents, the werewolves, or the Denalis noticing and we would become vampires ourselves. It took a bit a planning and backtracking, so that we did not leave a scent trail to be followed, but we did it. By the morning of my seventeenth birthday, we were in Texas, and by night fall, we were with Maria. She bit us that night.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: So Maria has Alice and Jasper, but how are the Cullens going to get them back?<p> 


	63. Chapter 62

Russell's POV:

As odd as this may sound, life went on. Jasper and Alice were gone, pregnant again. We all missed them, but we were excited about the prospects of having a nephew. Emmett was away at college for the first time, but he was only four hours away in Seattle. Mom and Dad drove me and Edward down to Seattle almost every Friday after school so that we could see Jasper and Alice over the weekend. We would all drive back Sunday afternoon, but I still got to see Emmett every weekend. And when we did not go to Seattle, then Emmett came home to Forks, so the separation really was not too bad.

We were all worried when Jasper had the baby early. Jasper Jr. looked so small and fragile that it seemed like a heavy wind would sweep him up and carry him away; not that he was ever exposed to the wind or got to go outside, because he spent his entire short life in that incubator in the NICU. Emmett, Edward, and I never even got a chance to hold him, although I know Mom and Dad each held him a few times. They have the "My first grandbaby" pictures framed in the living room to prove it.

We were all devastated when Jasper Jr. did not survive and we gathered around Alice and Jasper to offer them our support. As a family, we grieved for months. Even though Edward, Emmett, and I went back to school after three weeks, we still grieved for the nephew we had lost. We tried to grieve with Alice and Jasper, but they were not there with us. Sure they were there physically and they were grieving too, but they were not there intellectually. Their grief was on a deeper, more far off level, and they barely seemed to be able to eat when we put food in front of them, so we hardly even noticed when they stared off into space instead of answering our questions. Their bodies had come home, but their minds had not and we were all worried that we had lost our brother and sister that day when we lost our nephew.

Mom and Dad were really concerned about Jasper and Alice. They seemed to deal with their grief by springing into action and organizing the funeral. And then after the funeral it was meeting with a slew of psychologists and therapists and discussing the possibility that our siblings were catatonic. They barely had time to notice that Edward and I were graduating from high school, on time, let alone throw us a graduation party.

And so Edward and I slipped silently and unnoticed from our childhood home in Forks to the dormitory at the University of Washington in Seattle. With Emmett, that made three of us brothers and Edward's boyfriend Seth made four. Normally freshmen stay in the freshmen dorms, with two people per room and about ten rooms per bathroom and common room. But with four gay brothers, we were allowed to petition to be moved to the sophomore dorms, which looked exactly like two bedroom apartments.

Emmett was a sophomore anyway, so he was supposed to be in the apartment style dorms. And since he checked the homosexual box, he was supposed to be in a block with other homosexual males, to prevent conflicts that tended to arise when the University paired gays with bigots as roommates. All Emmett did was mention that he happened to have two gay brothers assigned to the freshman dorms, and one of those brothers had a boyfriend, and the queer in charge of his block gave him the forms. Jessica, the head Lesbian in room 156 E, was really nice and even helped the four of us fill out the forms. She even made sure Emmett turned them in on time and invited us to a block party the Sunday night before school started.

Our block color was rainbow and our motto seemed to be, "The queerer the betterer," so our block parties where a bit ridiculous and quite frankly embarrassing to be seen at. Sure I was a dude and liked cock, a lot, and I was fine when we were kids and Edward put on a dress, but painting your face in the colors of the rainbow and prancing around half naked wearing nothing but a speedo and a cowboy hat, was weird for me. I decided at that first party that I was going to stay away from Scott, the rainbow speedo cowboy, as much as I could.

I ended up leaving the party early and going back to our dorm, telling Emmett, "Go ahead and stay. I just want to work on unpacking my stuff and make sure I've got all my stuff ready for class tomorrow morning. I think I need one more book for Humanities; whatever you said that was."

Emmett, Edward, and Seth stayed at the party for a few more hours, while I went back to our dorm and started unpacking the kitchen stuff Mom had sent us. The kitchen was tiny compared to the one back home and reminded me of cooking in the motel, but at least it had a fridge, stove, sink, dishwasher, microwave, and pantry. There just was not anything more than that and the stock dorm table was crammed in the middle of the floor with four chairs squeezed in around it.

Edward was rooming with Seth, so I got to share a room with Emmett. His stuff was neatly folded and stacked in his drawers or hung up on his side of the closet, because he had already been allowed in the dorm last week to unpack. But my stuff was still in boxes and blocking the walkways to the king-sized bed. It was really just the two standard twin beds, but we had requested the room for couples, so they had pushed the beds together and added a mattress pad on top. Before the party I was concerned that the neighbors would complain about all the gay sex going on in our dorm, but then I met Scott, who I swear was trying to have gay sex with his lawn chair. Or he would have been if it had a penis. Scott and his three roommates were in the dorm right next to ours.

After I unpacked the kitchen, I went to work on my room. I was just getting mad at Emmett for leaving me alone while he was having fun at that stupid party when he finally came back and helped me put away the rest of my stuff. I was still a little jealous thinking about the possibility that he thought Scott was attractive, so as soon as we got the bed cleared off, I fucked him good and hard until his eyes were rolling back in his head and he was screaming my name. Then I fucked him a few more times, just to make sure he would not be able to walk properly tomorrow and I gave him a hickey so that everyone would know he was mine. I was going to try for a fourth round, but after the third time he could not keep his eyes open and I let him drift off to sleep.

In the morning, I woke up to Emmett peppering light kisses up and down my chest and a raging hard on, despite the fact that I had cum three times last night. I urgently pulled Emmett's body down on me, trying to get my aching throbbing boner in contact with his soft warm skin, but I just kept feeling rough denim against my cock. "What the fuck?" I asked as I opened my eyes to see Emmett fully dressed above me.

"I made breakfast. You've got class first thing this morning, or did you forget?" he asked, grinding his hard jeans on my shaft.

"I don't want breakfast," I protested, pulling at his pants' button. Whoever had said that tight pants were fashionable for gay men should be shot, because it was taking me entirely too long to get those pants off my man. Sweatpants should be fashionable, because they sported easier access to the goods.

"Rus," he moaned. "We don't have time for this. By the time you eat, shower, and get dressed, you'll be late for class."

"I don't need to eat, shower, or get dressed. All I need is you," I replied, finally winning my battle with the jeans and getting them off of his fine ass. Then it was only another ten seconds before his boxers where off, he was straddling me, and I was sinking my shaft into his warm wet pussy. He was very wet and I could feel fluids dripping down my balls to my pussy lips already. "You naught boy: you got dressed without cleaning up my spunk from last night, didn't you?"

Emmett nodded and slammed down harder on my shaft, reaching down to fondle my breasts. I grabbed his straight angular hips and held him tight to me, reaching up to pull his chest down against mine. Once I had him firmly in my grasp, I flipped us over and took control, grabbing his knees to let him know I wanted him spread wide open for me so I could really pound that tight pussy of his. I gave it to him hard and good and fast and when my pace became erratic, I reached down and began stroking his micro.

I bit into the soft skin under his freshly shaven jaw, making sure to mark him again, and he screamed out my name and released his clear fluids all over my chest. Then I came thinking about what a naughty boy he had been to sleep with my jizz all up in him and I pounded him harder, to make sure I filled every last crevice with my being and came all up in that ish.

And then Emmett was turning me over and snaking his fingers under my balls, to my pussy and fingering me with my own juices that had dripped out of him and down onto me earlier. He filled me with two of his big sausage fingers and stroked my prostate, extending my orgasm, so that my body kept spasming and my muscles kept contracting long after my penis stopped spilling forth my seed. When I was done, I looked up at Emmett and he was smiling down at me, while reaching for the baby wipes. He wiped all of the jizz off of us and I thanked Darwin that Dad had put him on the pill, because there was that much cum.

After Alice knocked Jasper up for the second time, Dad had decided that Emmett needed to be on birth control pills, before Mom ended up with a house full of grandbabies before we had even finished high school. I knew Emmett still wanted children, badly, and even more so now that we had lost our nephew, but he also understood the need to wait until we graduated from University. And most importantly, our family could not handle another miscarriage right now.

But assuming that Emmett and I would have the same problem with miscarrying that Jasper and Alice seemed to have was very pessimistic of me and I had other things to do today, besides worry about what would be. So I let Emmett pull me out of bed, looked at the clock, and screeched, "Oh shit, I'm gonna be late for class."

"I think you already missed it," he replied, throwing away the last of the used wipes.

"No I didn't. You're such a chick," I teased as I grabbed my baggy sweater and matching sweatpants.

Normally I spend forever getting dressed, wrapping my hips and chest and making sure I looked fat, not curvy, but not today. I just threw on my baggy sweats and put my messy hair up in what I hoped was a very manly ponytail- I really needed to get a haircut, because even I had to admit, I looked fairly androgynous today. I did not even have time to use my eye liner to draw on some stubble under my lip, like I normally did.

"If you don't start spending more time on your appearance and less time fucking my brains out, people are gonna get suspicious. This place is like the transgender capital of the world."

"Isn't that San Francisco?" I replied grabbing my dorm key and my backpack.

"Maybe, but there are a lot of trannies in this block."

"Yeah I know: I just fucked one. Love you, I gotta go," I teased, walking to the door.

Emmett followed me and gave me a quick peck on the lips at the door and then I was off and running to class.

"Where have you been?" Edward hissed as I crept into class late and sat down in the empty seat next to him. Seth was on his other side and there was another guy on Seth's other side, so I assumed they had made a new friend.

"Thanks for saving me a seat."

"Shh,' he hushed me, trying to copy down what the professor was saying.

I pulled a copy of the syllabus off of the ground and tried to figure out where we were and catch up, but I was later than I thought and class ended not ten minutes after I walked in. "Why didn't you two wait for me this morning?" I asked as we stood up and started heading for the door.

"Um, no offense, by we could hear you two going at it from Scott's place," Edward replied, clapping me on the shoulder.

"Scott?" I asked, wondering why we were bringing up the rainbow cowboy.

"In the flesh," the plain faced average looking dude next to Seth replied. Fuck, he was not even wearing the cowboy hat. How was I supposed to recognize him and keep my foot out of my mouth? "You know, you really need to work on looking like a man. If you want, you can come over and I can help you."

Why was the rainbow speedo master offering to teach me how to dress? Was there really something all that wrong with my sweats? I looked around now and saw not one, not two, not three, or four, or five, but six, count them six, other people wearing pajamas to class. This was an eight freaking am class with over two hundred students; were seven people showing up in their pajamas really that odd? Emmett had told me dozens of times that he had gone to class in his pajamas; what was so wrong with mine?

Instead of saying all of this out loud, I just gave Rainbow Scott the death-stare.

"Hey, are you still coming back to our dorm with us?" Seth asked Scott as we walked back the way we had come.

"Why're you even in this class anyway?" I asked Scott. "Isn't this a freshman class."

"Yeah and I'm a freshman. What's your point?"

"Then why're you in the sophomore dorms with us?" I asked another in response.

"We're not in the sophomore dorms! We're in the transgender dorms, douchebag," he replied.

"What? I thought we were in the gay block of the sophomore dorms."

"Yeah, the complex in for the sophomores, and our block is for the gays, but our building is all trannies. Except for Edward and Seth: I don't know how you two made it passed security."

"Hello? Two gay dudes with two tranny brothers who are fucking each other? Loudly? Oh Russell! Harder, faster," Edward replied. His voice sounded high, like a teenaged girl at first, but then he started mimicking Emmett's gruff moans at the end.

"Em didn't say that!"

"He did last night," Seth chortled, laughing his little queer ass off.

"So what, all of the trannies in the whole school are in our building?" I asked, getting back to the point and away from how Emmett sounded when I was sexing him.

"Duh," Scott replied.

"Then I ask again, why are you here Scott?" I asked as we approached our dorms.

"I'm not scheduled for surgery until next summer- I won't get my penis until then," he replied, looking down at the ground, suddenly embarrassed, although he had not been the least bit embarrassed wearing that speedo and parading his goods around in front of my man last night. Oh wait, if he did not have a penis yet, then how was he parading his goods around last night?

I just looked at Scott with a blank expression on my face and my jaw hanging open, so he continued talking after a few minutes of silence, "I got these done last spring, for my eighteenth birthday." Here he grabbed his chest, like he was grabbing boobs, but there was nothing but flat chest there. "My granny gave me the money to have the boobs removed. That's why I used the rainbow paint at the party: to cover up my boob scars."

"What?" I asked, still confused.

"The rainbow paint? From my face, to halfway down my chest, covering the scars where they removed my breasts? And the fake wiener in my speedo?" he asked and then I finally understood what he was talking about. Scott was a chick but was having surgery to become a dude.

"So what was your name before?" I asked him.

"Shannon. Yours?"

"Rosalie."

"You need to work on how you dress, because people are gonna see those boobs. Normally people get the boobs removed before they get the penis. Why'd you do it backwards?"

"Emmett likes the boobs," Edward supplied, when I came up blank.

"But I thought you liked dudes? You were totally flirting with my Em," I said defensively.

"I do: Emmett's hot. I bet he has a great big cock under those tight pants of his," Scott replied.

"Not as big as mine," Edward teased, grabbing his crotch.

"Wait, if you like men and you were born a woman, why're you having a gender change operation?" I asked confused.

"Because I feel like a man, in here," he answered, pointing to his head. "I still like getting fucked up the ass, same as everyone."

I cringed and Edward noticed. "Scott man, the trannies are using a pussy. Neither of my brothers have ever taken it up the ass."

"Edward!" I yelled. "Don't tell anyone that!"

"Russell, you already told him your name used to be Rosalie: I think he knows there is a pink taco in our dorm," Seth said as Edward's face went white.

"Sorry Rus," Edward added sheepishly. "But I thought everyone already knew about Emmett: he's been at this school longer than us."

"Yeah, but he was in the gay freshman dorm last year. No one knew about him," I said.

"Sorry," Edward and Seth said in unison.

"I won't tell man, but I agree: everyone knows he's a tranny," Scott added.

Just then we heard our door open, which we had been standing in front of while we argued, so we all collectively held our breath waiting to see who was there. But it was just Emmett, duh: Seth, Edward, and I were already outside and there were only four of us. But still, for a moment, I thought that Emmett might have had a guest over.

"What's going on? I heard you yelling Rus," Emmett said when none of us spoke or even said hello to him.

"Em, did you know that we're in the tranny section of the dorms?" I asked.

"Um yeah. That's how I got all of us in. I almost couldn't get Edward and Seth in, but then I got Dad to fill out the paperwork saying that Edward's…" Emmett trailed off, but I knew what he was about to say. He was about to reveal Edward's micropenis.

"I'm a cross dresser. I used to wear nothing but dresses until I went into my pirate phase," Edward supplied.

"And I almost didn't get in," Seth revealed. "That administrator dude said that there were two openings left and if they get two more trannies, I'm out."

"That'll never happen. Last year there was another whole building of trannies. They'll just make another building for trannies and fill the extra space with gays and lesbians, just as they always do," Emmett supplied knowledgably.

"So Emmett, can you tell me why everyone else," and here I meant Scott, "seems to know about your pussy?" I asked accusingly.

"See this is why I didn't want to tell you Rus: I knew you'd over react if you knew we were in the tranny building. But look, we get to have a kitchen and a living room and a _bathroom_ all to ourselves and we only have to share it with Edward and Seth. Isn't that worth admitting that I have a vag?"

"Oh my Darwin! You told everybody last night at the party, didn't you? That's why you took so long to come home!" I accused.

"What? Flipping Flying Spaghetti Monster no! I didn't tell anyone at that party. Edward, Seth, and I were playing videogames, for Ramen's sake."

"Then how did Scott know?" I asked again.

"Um, I think I should leave now," Scott said, backing up slowly before running into his own dorm.

"Fine Rus! I moved in last week because that was the transvestite moving date. We had a transvestite party, where we sat around in a circle and talked about our bodies and surgeries and had to meet with a therapist and go to group counseling and everything. Edward and Seth went too."

"And where was I?"

"I think we should go too," Edward said backing away in the direction Scott had gone. I looked at him for a moment, just long enough to see that Seth was pulling him towards Scott's door, before turning my attention back to Emmett.

"It was your day to help Mom with Jasper and Alice. Dad and Dr. Flynn both wrote you notes and once the coordinator found out that our parents had adopted five trannies and two were depressed and you have already been through a shit-load of therapy, they let you off the hook for orientation week. Now stop making a scene and come inside Rus," Emmett said opening our door. I looked around, but did not see anyone watching, but still, I let my husband lead me inside our dorm.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why did you lie to me?"

"Because you would've freaked out and insisted that they put you in the gay dorms. The gay freshman dorms are all the way across campus with the rest of the freshmen."

"No, I wouldn't've."

"Rus, you don't want anyone to know about your breasts or your vagina or that you're even the tiniest bit intersexed. In high school, you told everyone that we're gay and we like to take it up the ass, just so no one would know."

"But that was then. You didn't even give me a chance."

"Would that have changed anything?"

"Yeah: I'd be in the gay dorms like I thought I was."

"Rus, you're perfect just the way you are. I love your body and I wish everyone else knew how hot you are. But someday you're gonna have to tell people and let them in."

"No I won't."

"Yeah, you will: you're out of first week orientation, not weekly therapy or group therapy. Your day is Thursday."

"And when were you gonna tell me this?"

"I was gonna tell you that it was gay therapy to replace Dr. Flynn."

"There's no such thing as gay therapy."

"Is there? I told you I was seeing a new university therapist now that I'm out here, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you told me last year, when you started. But I thought that it was something you had signed up for. Something optional."

"It was optional, but Dad made me opt in so I wouldn't have to see Dr. Flynn. I didn't tell her the truth about us until last April and then she told me about the tranny dorms. She said she was recommending me for them for this year and I really should've been in them last year. If anyone had known, I would've been."

"So I still have to go to therapy?" I asked and he nodded. "On Thursday?" I groaned.

"You're not too mad at me, are you?" he asked, taking me into his arms and kissing me.

"Yes."

"Are you still mad at me?" he whispered into my ear and his hands snaked under my sweatpants and straight to my cock.

"Yes. You totally told Scott our life stories."

"Who cares when your cock is in my hand?" he asked, stroking me.

I forgot what we were arguing about and just grunted in response: my cock was a needy bastard and Emmett knew how to make it take over. "I didn't tell Scott anything about you. If he knew, then it was because you're in this dorm or your boobs were hanging out in class, but I didn't tell," he said pulling my pants down and lowering himself to take me in his mouth. Emmett gave great head, seriously.


	64. Chapter 63

Russell's POV:

Edward and I both survived our first semester of University and I even forgave Emmett for tricking me into the transvestite dorms. No one else, besides the other trannies, knew anyway; not even the gay kids knew. As far as all of the other students were concerned, our building was just another dorm filled with the typical fruits that were so commonly seen on campus waving their rainbow flags in the wind. We were hiding in plain sight.

We went home for winter break, but even though Jasper and Alice had come out of their funk, Mom and Dad were still spending all of their time hovering around them. Mom was busy calling their schools, making sure they knew to watch Alice for signs of suicide and making sure that Jasper had finished all of his classes and his diploma was officially in the mail. And Dad was busy calling all of their doctors, making sure Alice was reacting appropriately as they weaned her off of her antidepressants and that everything was set for Jasper's surgery.

With everything going on at home, we ended up spending the break the same way Edward and I spent most of senior year: over at Seth's house or Henry's house. The only thing that changed was now Emmett was with us and we did not have any homework. It was boring at first, but we ended up coming up with a way to make money. The four of us would go down to First Beach, collect the colored pebbles that gathered along the shore when the waves crashed, then go back to Seth's house and make collages; i.e. we glued the little stones onto paint-by-numbers patterns we downloaded and printed from the web. Then we took the collages back to First Beach and sold them to tourists as real authentic Quileute art, signed by Seth himself.

The four of us did not make much money at first, but then we added a sign to our folding table that read, "Profits go to help the artist- starving college student- pay for school and top ramen." After that, the tourists were eating up our paint-by-numbers masterpieces and we netted three hundred dollars, after we subtracted money for supplies, because glue and paper were expensive!

We were all pretty excited about what we could do with the money. Sure Mom and Dad were loaded, but with three of us in college and Jasper's surgery, money was pretty tight. We were going to use the money to throw a totally awesome party, but then we thought that we should put the money to better use and spruce up our dorm. But then Mom and Dad failed to give us our typical clothing allowance for Christmas, so we ended up taking the three hundred to the mall and we each got seventy-five for new clothes. I have not had such a tight clothing allowance since before I was adopted. If it were not for the meal-plan that came with the dorm, we probably really would have been starving college students.

So none of us had spent much time at home or with Alice and Jasper in a long time, but in hindsight, I wish I had. I wish I knew what was going on with them: was Alice still depressed? Was Jasper? Was it so bad that they would really run away? Or did they just not want us to find their bodies? Were they out in the woods somewhere? Or did one of them have a new friend that we did not know about? Were they at a friend's house, hiding away from reality?

Whatever was up with Alice and Jasper, they were up to it together, because Mom called Tuesday evening on the third week of classes of spring semester and asked, "Alice and Jasper aren't with you guys by any chance, are they? You haven't seen them, right?"

"No, they're not here Mom," I replied not quite catching what was going on, but putting my phone on speaker anyway so that Emmett, Edward, and Seth could hear. "They're not home or something?"

"No one has heard from them since they went to bed last night. Their beds were made this morning when your father and I woke up. They didn't leave a note, but we're hoping they just took off to have some time alone."

"Are they at Tanya and William's place?" Edward asked, leaning closer to the table, where I had set my phone.

"No, they're still out of town in Alaska. I called, but they haven't heard from them. They're already driving down in case we need help searching. Your father and I already searched the cabin."

"I'm sure they'll come back home soon Mom," Emmett supplied soothingly.

"They probably just got horny and went out," I added, thinking about all of the times that had happened to me and Emmett.

"Yeah, did you check the garage?" Edward asked.

"Yes. There's no sign of them in the garage, but they haven't used the garage in years. Your father and I just put in our ear plugs now," Mom said.

"TMI, Mom, TMI," Emmett replied.

"Well let me know if you hear from them or if you think of anywhere they could be," Mom said in her over-protective voice.

"You checked with Henry?" Edward asked.

"Henry hasn't heard from them. I called his mother who gave me his number over in Oregon," Mom replied. Henry had gone off to the University of Oregon.

"Okay Mom. Call us and let us know if they come home," I added before we all told our mother that we loved her and not to worry about Jasper and Alice, because we were sure that they would come home soon.

Only we were not as sure as we told our mother: not one of us had any real reason to think that Jasper and Alice would return soon. They had not mentioned any short trip they had been planning and if this was a repeat of that trip to Las Vegas, they would probably stay away for half a week or more. They never mentioned a longer trip, but if they did it once, they could do it again. They probably had a new set of fake IDs.

When our Friday morning class ended we piled in Emmett's car and drove home to Forks, to join in the search for Jasper and Alice. We took their pictures to the airport, to see if anyone matching their description had boarded a plane under a false name, but no one recognized them. We checked at the car rental agency in Port Angeles, but no one had ever seen them before. We stopped by the local used-car dealership, but still no luck. We plastered the area with flyers, but no one called our tip line with any real solid leads. All we got was a sighting of some look-a-likes at a bar in Seattle, but when Charlie tracked them down, they were not Alice or Jasper. They were not even close.

We even searched the forest. Seth was able to get his follow werewolves from La Push to come out and help in the search. They found the beginning of the scent path at our house, just as Mom and Dad said, but it ended at the river out back and never picked up again. The wolves searched the forest and the beach, but never found a path. We feared the worst: that they had drowned themselves, but we did not find one shred of evidence, such as a body or scrap of clothing, to support the idea that they had died. Nor was there any evidence that they were still alive, such as a scent trail exiting the river or a hit on Alice's credit card. They were just gone, with no clues left behind and no breadcrumb trail to follow.

Well almost. There was just that one clue Mom found in Jasper's room. It was a receipt for a kayak from Newton's sporting goods. When Charlie asked Karen Newton, Mike's mother, she remembered ordering a kayak specifically for Alice. She had come into the store the evening of Jasper's last surgery and ordered it, paying extra to have it shipped express to our house. Alice had said that it was a surprise for Jasper's seventeenth birthday, which was only days away now. They had a camping and kayaking trip planned.

Mom just kept hoping that they had gone kayaking and camping, just like Alice had told Mrs. Newton, and they would be back in another week or so, none the worse for wear besides a few potential bruises or scrapes. They must have wanted to be alone for Jasper's birthday; truly alone without any werewolves or vampires watching over them, so they snuck out early in the morning without leaving a note. They would be back soon with new stories to tell about what a wonderful time they were having while we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to find them.

Charlie's favored hypothesis was that Alice and Jasper left early Tuesday morning to go kayaking. He was able to determine that the Kayak arrived Monday afternoon and Jasper had signed for it while Alice was at school, Dad was at work, and Mom was visiting a potential client. Jasper had been the only one home when the kayak was delivered and somehow, despite his surgery, he had managed to hide it out of site from our parents, because neither of them had notice a kayak when they got home hours later.

It seemed Jasper and Alice put that kayak in the river just behind the house, got in, and never came back. They also did not exit the river upstream or downstream, because the wolves just could not find a scent trail in either direction or off of a number of tributaries, nor could our cousins from Denali. William, Tanya, and the rest of the gang was already here, helping in the search, by the time we got there. They did not tell our parents, but they told us kids that there was absolutely no trace of Jasper or Alice after they entered the river.

The only thing the Denalis found was that Jasper's brother Peter had been in the vicinity of the hospital. At first I thought it was odd that Peter was in the area, because he had only come to Washington a handful of times and he had not told any of us that he was coming, but then Seth revealed that Peter was a vampire now, and as weird as that sounds, William confirmed it. And Seth and William seemed to have knowledge of Peter visiting Jasper more frequently than the rest of us realized. The pattern seemed to be that when Jasper was in the hospital, Peter was nearby, checking on him. Jasper was Peter's little brother and it was understandable to be concerned when your closest relation is hospitalized, so the Quileutes and Denalis had let him slip through unmolested, not even having bothered to ask Peter what he was up to. Now that Jasper and Alice were gone, not knowing what Peter was up to seemed to be a major gap in our intelligence and I frequently found myself wishing that someone had thought to ask him.

Unlike Charlie, the Quileutes and the Denalis did not believe that Jasper and Alice had drowned in the river. They were always fighting, but they did agree on one thing: our brother and sister left alive and they had left with Peter. And although they told Emmett, Edward, and me, they refused to tell Charlie or our parents. There was no logical way they could have known, so they refused to tell and the truth remained a secret. And with nothing solid to go on, Mom and Dad assumed Jasper and Alice were dead and set about planning the funeral. I had hoped they would not have given up so soon, but with their history with depression and suicidal thoughts, our parents had assumed the worst.

When we were at the funeral I just kept thinking, 'This is wrong: Jasper and Alice are alive,' and I made a promise to myself that if I ever found anyway to find them, anyway at all, I would try. I would do anything to bring my siblings back, even if they were taken by vampires, because the looks on my Mom and Dad's faces were just heartbreaking. They really did believe that two of their children had died and so soon after the death of their first grandson too.

And although I made that promise to myself, there was nothing I could do. I tried and I tried and I posted flyers and I looked for a year and a half. But now I had finished my second year of University and we were still no closer to finding them. William and Tanya refused to go after Jasper and Alice, saying that they had probably been eaten long ago and that they would not risk venturing into another vampire's territory to search for a couple of corpses, no matter how much they love us or how much we pleaded or how certain we were that our siblings were still alive somewhere. The werewolves were no more help than the vampires, because they said they had nowhere to look to begin their search, so they were at a dead end.

It was not until I was packing up my stuff, preparing to return home to Fork for the summer, that I finally got the chance to make good on my promise: a vampire climbed in my window. I was really shocked when I saw her at first, because I was not expecting her, even though she had promised to come back for me one day, so I just stood there and stared at my mother's pale skin as the ceiling light made it practically glow with iridescences. Not Esme, my other mother, Carol.

"I came back for you Russell," my mom said, when I finally managed to pull in another breath of air. Breathing had suddenly become harder than I thought.

"How?" I asked in stunned disbelief.

"How what? How have I come back for you? I got out of jail two years ago. I would've come sooner, but I had a little mishap," she revealed in very fast-paced speech.

"How are you a vampire?" I asked.

"Oh that: the little mishap. I would've been here sooner, but new vampires can't be around humans. It's very dangerous. I hope you don't mind that it took me so long to come, but I was only protecting you, honest."

"I don't mind. But who changed you?"

"My boyfriend Laurent. How do you know so much about vampires?"

"I've met a couple before. When did you get a boyfriend?"

"Two years ago, when he changed me."

"Who changed him?"

"Oh he's been a vampire for a very long time."

"Why'd he change you?"

"We met in Alabama, when I was in a halfway house after doing my time for Jonquil. He thought I was pretty and decided he wanted me. He busted me out early and changed me. I've been with him ever since. Anyway, get your stuff and let's go," she said pulling out my backpack from the box I was packing.

"Where are we going?" I asked, grabbing my keys and wallet and stuffing them in my pockets, before emptying out my backpack and filling it with clothes.

"North to Canada: Laurent is waiting for me there. He said he would change you for me."

"You'll change me into a vampire?" I asked, thinking that if I was a vampire, then I could find Alice and Jasper myself. They were probably vampires themselves already, since they had been taken by a vampire.

"Yes, but we need to hurry before those brothers of yours come back. What ever happened to watching Lily and Daisy for me? Do you even know where they are?"

"Sure I know where they are: Daisy is still in Beaver with the Markeses, right where you left her, and Lily goes to community college in Port Angeles. She finished high school last year."

"Not anymore. Laurent already changed them, so they're up in Canada waiting for us. Let's go meet them."

"I can't go without Emmett. Will you change him too?"

"Why? He's not your real brother."

"He's my boyfriend."

"Your boyfriend?" she asked confused. For a moment I thought she was going to disown me for being gay or something because I thought I saw her face scrunch up in disgust, but then it past and she smiled again. "Oh, you mean your husband. Did you think I wouldn't find out about that?"

"Yes, I mean no. Um…" I stumbled verbally.

"Relax Rus. We can get that husband of yours before we head for Canada. Laurent will change you all for me. He already changed Jonquil and Ian too," Mom said grabbing Emmett's backpack, dumping it out, and repacking it with clothes, just as I had done with my own, only she did his in about ten seconds, not the ten minutes I had taken.

And then we were off to find Emmett. Mom already seemed to know right where he was, in his evening class, and she led me there. I snuck in, while Mom waited outside, and whispered to him that there was an emergency and he needed to leave with me. He followed and did not ask any questions when we went outside and my mother was there. He did not even protest when we asked him to drive us north.

While Emmett drove, I explained the plan to him: we were to go with my mother to Canada to become vampires. He looked me in the eyes for a moment and I willed him to understand that I was doing this to find Alice and Jasper and hoping that he would keep his mouth shut and just go along with it. He seemed to understand, so he just nodded his head and turned his eyes back to the road.

I was burning within twenty-four hours and within eighty-four hours, I was so thirsty that I could not remember my own name, much less that I was married to Emmett or was supposed to be finding my brother and sister. I barely had time to look in my reflection in the still waters of the early morning lake that was just out back of where my mom and her boyfriend were staying. But a lake is a poor substitute for an actual mirror, so when I failed to recognize myself, I just brushed it off and went back to finding my next victim to drink. Sure I knew my voice was all wrong and sounded like bells or wind chimes or something, but everyone's voice was like that now and I had victims to find, blood to drink, and bodies to dispose of. Maybe I would even let Emmett come with me next time, if he promises not to get too close and not try to steal my humans. I was not into sharing in this life.


	65. Chapter 64

Edward's POV:

Seth and I had been at the dining hall eating dinner when it happened. We did not see anything or hear anything and I did not smell anything out of the ordinary, but Seth did smell something when we returned to our dorm. Russell and Emmett were nowhere to be seen, but it was not all that late and there were still plenty of explanations for where they could be. They could be eating at another dining hall. They could be visiting a friend in another dorm. They could be at the library studying, or the gym working out, or the baseball diamond playing a pickup game.

But Seth did not think my brothers were any of those places or doing any of those things, even though we had seen them not two hours ago. Seth thought that they had gone the way of Alice and Jasper, because the window in Emmett and Russell's room was still open and he could smell the vampire in the room. It was a female this time, he could tell, but he did not recognize this scent, so he called in reinforcements.

"Jacob, Paul, and Sam, sniff over by that open window and tell me what you smell," Seth said when his pack brothers joined us. "And the bed too. I definitely smelt something by the bed." They had arrived far quicker than they should have if they had taken a car from Forks, because it had only taken them a half hour to run the four hour drive.

"You're right, a female was here," Paul said, sniffing the curtains.

"Ow," I said and swatted at my arm.

"Definitely female," Jacob concurred, sniffing the bedspread.

"What happened?" Seth asked me, reaching me in one long stride.

"Nothing, just a mosquito bite: they left the window open and it must have flown in," I said lifting up my hand and showing my boyfriend the smashed mosquito before flinging it to the floor.

"Poor baby," he said wrapping me in his arms and kissing me.

"Can we get back to the vampire who was in your dorm Seth? Let's fan out and search the campus and see where the trail leads," Sam ordered.

And so the four large Quileutes fanned out and searched, but all Seth had to say when they came back was, "We only found two trails. One leads to Emmett's last class, which is where they probably picked him up from. And the other leads from his last class to the parking lot, where his car is missing." It was expensive to park your car on campus, so only Emmett had his car here and the rest of us had left our cars in Forks.

So we now had a little more information to go on, but the fact that this vampire had picked up Russell first and then gone to find Emmett before leaving in Emmett's car did not give us anything new to work with. None of the werewolves recognized this new scent, so we were stuck. It was not until a week later when the wolves caught the scent for a second time that we became unstuck. The new female vampire had been in Port Angeles and moving south, towards Forks, but the scent was faint and had been washed away by rain, so this new trail did not provide much new additional information, not to the Quileutes at least.

William, however, thought that this new clue was vital in solving the mystery. The scent was new to him and the Denalis too and what was more, they were sure that it belonged to a new vampire. Not just new to the area, but a newborn vampire, definitely less than two years into her second life. Her, because they also agree that the scent was conclusively female, without any room for doubt.

Emmett and Russell took off with a new young female vampire, who had been in the Port Angeles area and had headed towards Forks and William thought he knew who that vampire might be: Alice. Alice had become a vampire and come back to the area to check and see if she could get to our home in Forks, but when she came across a trail left by the Denalis in Beaver, she got scared and took off North again.

Then Alice had decided to look in Seattle for us, but avoided Seth, because he was a werewolf. She came in their window and took my brothers with her, wherever it was that she went. She probably led them to Jasper. Maybe she was even leading them to Maria, to be changed. It seemed a possibility. It seemed our best hope that the four were still alive. We had new hope that we would find our missing siblings, maybe if we could just follow the new trail into Canada.

But as much as I wanted to go off with Seth and the Quileutes searching the world for my siblings, I found myself unable to do so. At first I just had a fever and a headache, so I stayed in bed at home while Seth was out with his pack looking for my brothers. Mom and Dad were normally super attentive whenever I got sick, but this time neither of them stayed with me, because they were both out covering our campus in Seattle with flyers. Everyone was away now, on summer vacation, but Mom and Dad still had to try. They also had to pack up our stuff and move us out of our dorm, because none of us had ever completely finished any of it before Russell and Emmett disappeared.

It was Seth who first suggested taking me to the hospital on the third day of my illness, which was the fifth day since Russell and Emmett had disappeared. "Edward, you were sweating a minute ago and now you're shivering! We need to take you to the emergency room," he said.

"I'm fine. I just have the flu or something. If I were really that bad my dad would know," I protested and turned the TV back on, ignoring his advice, because I hated going to the hospital.

Another two days passed before my dad came home and checked on me. Seth had left me the night before to go run the perimeter and had not been back yet, so I was all alone. I wanted my boyfriend back, but I knew he had to go. He had to search for that new vampire and he would have to stop by La Push to report back to Sam and would probably stop in at his parents while he was there. His parents did like to know that he was still alive every once and a while; most parents do.

"Tink? Are you okay baby boy?" Dad asked me, coming into the room. Good, Mom and Dad were finally home. "Oh my. Esme, come quick!"

"I'm fine," I protested, but it sounded weak and feeble even to me.

"How long have you been like this son?" he asked me.

"Five days," I tried to say, but I could not quite make the sound come out. Instead, I held up my fingers. I had been trying to raise up five fingers, but when I looked at my hands I seemed to have four hands and twenty fingers up, even though I was sure my left hand was still down at my side, all four of them too. Something was not right, but my brain was working too sluggishly to figure out what.

"Yes Carlisle? Did they find something on Russell or Emmett?" Mom asked coming into my room.

By now I was tired again, which had been happening a lot lately, so my eyes closed even though I tried to stay awake. The next time I opened my eyes, I was in the hospital with a bunch of IVs hooked up to me and my mom was waiting by my side.

"Tink? Can you hear me Tink?" she asked me. I tried to respond, but talking was harder than I remembered. "It's okay, you don't have to answer me. You have West Nile; Seth says he remembers you getting bit by a mosquito. Did you get bit by a mosquito Tink?"

I tried to nod, but that was difficult too, so I ended up just lifting my right hand and hoping she understood. I was pleased to notice I was back to just the one hand on the right, but I could not remember why I thought I had four and I did not quite understand what my mother had said. I was sure those were words she had said, but the part with the mosquito was the only part that made any sense to me.

"You've been really sick Tink. You've been in here a long time and Dad didn't think you were getting any better. You were dying sweet baby of mine." Mom kissed my forehead as she spoke, before proceeding to put her hand on my chest, over my heart. "William wanted to bite you, but Seth forbade it. Dad over ruled him and let William do it. Do you feel a burning sensation Edward?" Mom asked me.

I wanted to say, "Yeah, my heart feels like it's on fire," but I think it came out more like a groan.

"It's gonna be alright Tink. You're gonna be a vampire soon and vampires can't die of West Nile: you're already getting better. You haven't opened your eyes in almost a month, but now you have. And don't worry about being a vampire, because William is gonna change your dad and me too just as soon as we get you out of this hospital. We'll all be vampires together soon and then we'll go find Russell, Emmett, Jasper and Alice. We'll be a family again soon."

I tried to nod again, but then remembered how hard that was and settled for raising my right hand again, before closing my eyes and drifting off to sleep to continue to burn.

I was sure this vampire thing was not working and that I was going to die anyway, because my heart was beating faster and the burning had spread to engulf my entire body, when I finally heard Seth's voice again. "What did you do to him!" Seth sounded angry and I wondered if it was because I was still dying. "I told you not to! Edward is _my_ mate! I imprinted! How could you do this to us?"

"He's my son," I heard my dad reply. I wanted to sit up and tell them to stop fighting over me, but the burning was too strong and I could not. "I'll make the decisions for him."

"He was going to die," I heard another male voice. I thought that this might be William, but it was hard to tell with the sound of my blood rushing through my ears so rapidly. "I saved him."

"You had no right to do this!" I heard Seth say. And then I heard another voice that sounded like his, but this one was softer and farther away, "He's better off dead. I wish you would've let him die! I loved him so much! What am I going to do now?"

"We had every right!" my dad replied. "He's my son. You may be dating, you may have even imprinted, but you aren't married or even domestic partners. You never even asked my boy to marry you. Why didn't you ask him Seth?"

"I was going to! He knows I was going to!" he replied and the softer voice added, "I was just scared, but I was saving up the money for the ring. But now, now my imprint is a vampire! This'll mean war. I need to get back to my pack."

"Don't go Seth," I tried to say, but all I managed was a weak gurgle this time. He has to stay with me. He has to be here when I die.

"I've gotta go," Seth said and I felt his lips on my cheek and heard him whispering into my ear. "I'll always love you Tink, no matter what happens. You'll always be my imprint."

And then Seth was gone and my dad was muttering, "Typical," and holding my hand.

Everyone was quiet after that and I would have thought that they had left, but I could still feel my dad's hand holding my hand and hear his heart thumping in his chest, as my heart in my chest began to thump ever faster. I thought it was about to explode when I began to realize that there was more than just the two of us breathing in this room. I could make out at least three more sets of paired breaths. Two in the corner on the right, two in the corner on the left, and another two by the door, in addition to Dad's breath washing down on my face and my own raspy breath.

And then my heart stopped and I thought that this was the end, so I opened my eyes to see my dad one last time. I heard him say, "You're so beautiful Tink," but his lips did not move when he said it.

Then I heard, "Is he thirsty? Is Carlisle in danger?" from one of the vampires in the corner. I looked over and it was Tanya standing there, next to William.

"Better back up now Carlisle," William said, moving his lips. But he added, "He's dangerous now," without moving his lips.

"But he's my son! He would never hurt me," Dad replied.

"He's a newborn now. He needs to drink," Eleazar said from his corner. "Esme will be one soon too."

"Mom?" I asked, wondering what Eleazar was talking about and why my mother was not here.

"Your mother's going to be with you soon son," Dad said. "As soon as I get you out of here, we'll be a family again."

"It'll only be another two days until she wakes up," Irina added from her spot next to Kate.

"I wonder if Esme will make as pretty of a vampire as Edward has? He sure is fine," Kate said, but when I looked over at her, she was not moving her lips again.

"Edward, I need you to listen to me. You need to follow our instructions closely. Can you do that?" Dad asked, but he smelled like a juicy stake and his heartbeat was burning my throat.

I grabbed my throat with both hands and nodded, while I heard, "Don't touch him Edward, he's your dad," come from Carmen.

And Kate said, "Tink wouldn't hurt Carlisle. He couldn't. It's not in his nature. Or it wasn't."

"Edward, we're going to take you to get something nice to drink to soothe your throat, just don't hurt your dad. Carlisle, you need to leave the room now," Eleazar said and suddenly he was right in front of me and Tanya was whisking Dad away, out of the room and down the hall. His heartbeat grew fainter and fainter over a matter of milliseconds, until it faded into the pulsing thumping sound of all of the hearts in the entire hospital collectively beating.

"Come on honey, through the window. We have a real treat waiting for you," Carmen said offering her hand.

I decided to stand up and then I was up instantly, before I could even contemplate how that had happened. And then I was following the vampires out the window and running and feeling the wind in my hair. The wind was so nice and so fresh and so sweet, washing the tantalizing smell of Dad out of my nostrils, so that I could finally concentrate on how clear and sharp and detailed my vision was now. It was like I had been seeing through a film before, but now my eyes were clear and I could see everything, down to the individual cells making up the leaves on the trees we passed.

I smelt a foul odor and I thought I saw a pair of wolves pass by- or rather I passed them by, because it was me that was running so fast, while they were standing still- and for a moment I thought it might be Seth, but Seth had always smelled earthy and these wolves smelled like rotting garbage left out in the summer sun to decay until it reached just the perfect consistency of decomposition. And then as fast as I thought I saw them I was passed and running and picking up speed, to get away from the smell and the sense of danger.

I followed Eleazar and William out into the forest, to a pen made out of fallen tree branches where a dozen deer were trapped. "Drink Edward," Tanya said, coming up from behind us, finally catching up because we had left her and the others behind in our run. Only the two males had been able to run fast enough to keep up with me.

Then the others were there too, but they all stayed off in the woods a hundred yards back. I looked to Eleazar, who was closest, and he nodded, so I jumped in and satisfied the burning thrust that had consumed me. I was so busy concentrating on the lush feel of the delicious blood as it soothed my aching throat, that I was not even thinking about what I was doing or the fact that I was drinking blood. And then that deer was empty and I moved onto the next and the next until every deer in that pen lay dead on the ground and empty of their precious fluid and I felt sloshy inside, although my throat still burned slightly.

"Good Edward. You drank a lot, are you still thirsty?" William asked, coming forward carrying a mountain lion. The animal clearly had its neck broken, but its heart still beat faintly and it smelled delicious.

I had heard William leave and return, but I had not noticed him catching an animal. The thought that he had done so without me noticing was fairly disturbing, but I could not manage a reply before I was stalking forward, thinking I must try this blood too. He threw the animal at me and ran towards the trees, but I let him go, because I caught the lion easily and was consumed by drinking it. When it was empty, Irina approached with the offering of a bear, neck also broken, but although it was fresh and warm, its heart had already stopped. The lack of heartbeat was inconvenient, because I had to suck harder to get at the fluid and it no longer pumped itself into my mouth, but it was still delicious; much better than the deer had been.

And then Kate, Carmen, and Tanya were at the edge of the forest, each with a wolf struggling in their grasps. These necks were not broken and their hearts beat strong, but they were each firmly in the grip of a vampire and therefore not going anywhere, no matter how hard they struggled or bit. In fact, I was pretty sure the crunching sound was the sound of Kate's wolf breaking its own jaw by trying to bite her hand. Stupid wolf, it was the first one to go.

Kate let her wolf go, it ran off into the woods, and I chased it for about a second before I caught it. It was too small and gone too quickly, so I was really glad when Carmen let her wolf go and I had something else to chase. But Tanya let hers go while I was still drinking Carmen's wolf, so it had gotten almost a mile away before I caught up to it and ended it too.

I was so intent on the chase and more blood that I had failed to pay attention to the fact that I was full. I was not just full, I was bursting from the seams with all of the blood I had consumed, so as I pulled in the first of this last wolf's blood, I realized that I could not drink another sip, no matter how good it tasted. This wolf smelled nothing like the giant decaying creatures we had passed, so I felt sad to let this blood waste. I continued to lap my tongue out at the blood as it spilled from the gash in the neck, but I now lacked the ability to really suck at it. And then this wolf reminded me of Seth and I threw it away from my body, disgusted at myself for even thinking of drinking something that looked so much like my Seth.

"Where's Seth?" I asked.

"Edward, Seth's a werewolf," Eleazar explained calmly. The others had all left at one time or another, but he had stayed close by me throughout this hunting exercise. "And you're a vampire now. There is something special about this one, I can feel it. But what?"

"Werewolves are our mortal enemy. I hate them," came Irina's voice from the trees nearby.

"I don't hate them. I love Seth," I said, scowling at her.

"You're hearing our thoughts, aren't you Edward?" Eleazar asked me, without moving his lips, I noticed.

"How're you doing that?" I asked.

"Doing what?" William asked, having just finished disposing of the deer I left dead in the pen.

"Talking without moving your lips?" I asked.

"We're not talking, we're thinking. You're reading our minds Edward," Eleazar replied, without moving his lips again. But then he added, "Edward is a mind reader, like Aro," but this time he moved his lips and I saw pictures of three pale vampires who looked to be made of some other type of stone then us. It was almost like their skin was composed of a flaky stone that was sloughing off.

"We need to get back to the hospital, before they notice he's missing," Tanya said, moving her lips.

"This is very important Edward: you have to pretend to be dead," William said.

"And he has to not drink anyone's blood," Kate added.

"I hope Carlisle survives this plan," Irina said.

"Why would I drink anyone? Why wouldn't my dad survive?" I asked confused.

"We didn't say that out loud Tink, we thought it," Kate replied.

"Edward, concentrate. You have to go back into that room and lie perfectly still and pretend to be dead. Then Carlisle will come in and move you to the morgue. Several more doctors will examine you and you have to stay still and dead. No breathing. Just hold your breath the entire time. Can you do that? Try holding your breath now," Eleazar instructed.

"But I need to breathe," I protested.

"No, you don't. You're a vampire now and we don't have to breathe. Just try to hold it," William said and I tried. I was surprised to learn he was right; so surprised I accidently took a breath. But then I stopped myself and held my breath for ten minutes straight and I found the wolf bleeding out at my feet no longer required my attention. It was fairly disturbing, so I left it there and started running back towards the hospital, holding my breath all the way.

"Good, now just keep doing that, even if you hear a heartbeat that sounds juicy, don't breathe even once," Eleazar instructed, leading me back into my hospital room and I did as he said.

I closed my eyes and held my breath and waited. I waited for fifteen minutes and then my dad came in and called for the nurses and code blue and pronounced me dead. And I waited as another three doctors came in and confirmed that I had no pulse. And I waited as they wheeled me, very slowly, down to the morgue and stuck me in a refrigeration unit, in a corpse-sized drawer. I waited for Eleazar and William and Tanya and the others to come back, but it was more humans who came. I heard the humans arguing over my corpse, but it was my dad's voice I focused on most.

"No, no autopsy. He had West Nile, we all know that. He was in a coma for over a month with encephalitis. There's no reason to cut his body open and desecrate his remains. He's my son and I don't want an autopsy and that's final!" my dad said.

"What about his mother? I haven't seen Esme in a day and a half. That's kind of fishy, seeing as her last son is dead and she hasn't left his bedside this whole time," another doctor said, but I did not recognize his voice. "This one makes five out of five children dead or missing."

"Esme left two days ago and you know it. It's like we said: we got a lead that Emmett and Russell had gone to Texas to look for Jasper and Alice because Jasper was from Texas and his brother is now gone too. The brother, Peter, was last seen in Texas and Charlie got a report that two gay young adults fitting Russell and Emmett's descriptions were seen in Houston. I called her and she agreed: no autopsy. She's already scheduled a flight back, but you know with all the heightened security at the airport that she couldn't get a flight back this soon. She'll be here for the funeral, in three days. Now leave my son's body alone or I will call the police," Dad threatened.

"Come on John, you can see the body: the boy's dead. He's always been sick," Dr. Gerandy said. I had spent enough time at this hospital helping my dad that I recognized his colleague's voice right away.

"Fine," the other doctor, John, mumbled, but I heard him fine.

"This is a terrible tragedy you've suffered Carlisle. We're all sorry for your loss and we know it couldn't have come at a worse time, not with Emmett and Russell missing too," said a voice I thought I recognized as Dr. Smith, the other doctor who worked here.

"It's suspicious that his whole family is gone. I hope the police don't find bodies when they search his house. I hope they get there soon. I called yesterday and reported my suspicions, what's taking them so long? I bet these incompetent boobs out here in the middle of nowhere don't even investigate that his entire family's gone. I bet he killed them all and buried them in the woods in back of his house. But what about this one? The tests did say West Nile and I double checked everything myself. Okay, maybe this one did die of natural causes, but the other five were surely murdered," John said, but I began to realize that he was not saying this halfway through his rant. He was only thinking it.

And then the humans left and I waited some more, until William came back for me and led me out the back entrance. We were out in the woods before he spoke or thought of anything but not being seen.

"You'll have to go back in a few days for the funeral, but that won't be until your mother is turned, so she can be there. Once the funeral is over, we'll change your dad and head north. We've been trying to pick up Russell and Emmett's scents, but we lost them after Seattle. But that woman they went with, probably my Alice, her scent leads up into Canada before we lost her crossing a river. She must have stayed in the river for a while and even switched bodies of water, because we haven't found where she came ashore. My Alice would do that, hide her scent, you know. That's why we lost her last time.

"It's rained since then, so that'll be a problem, but I still think we have a chance of finding them if we keep searching," he said out loud while we ran to his cabin. I knew that was where we were going, because I could see our destination in his head.

We were just on the outskirts of Cullen land when I crossed the horrible rotting dog smell again. I held my breath and hoped it would pass with the wind while I ran, but then I heard a soft murmur of, "Tink." I stopped and turned around and the giant wolf closest to me turned into Seth, but the other four wolves stayed in the trees. I only knew they were there from their thoughts, their heartbeats, and their awful stinks. Each one smelled like his own unique brand of rotting dog perfume.

"Seth?" I asked, raising my hand to touch him, but pulling back when his skin was so hot I thought he would burn me. I had done enough burning lately to be weary.

"Oh Tink! What did they do to you?" Seth asked out loud, but he was thinking, 'He looks good. I never thought I would say this, but I'm kinda glad my boyfriend's a vampire. I guess being a vampire isn't as bad as being dead after all…Well he does smell like rotting sugar cane, but other than that, I think I can live with it. He's still my Edward after all. I still feel the pull to him.'

"You know I can read minds now, don't you?" I asked him with a smile. He still loves me, I knew it.

"No, you can?" he asked. But what he was thinking was, "I love you Edward Cullen! I love you, I love you, I love you. Did you hear that? I love you.'

"I love you too," I replied and then I was kissing him and suddenly the rotting dog smell was not so bad, because this was my Seth and I would love him forever, no matter what he smelled like.

"We're gonna be okay, right?" Seth asked me, pulling away from our hot and heavy kiss. 'Even if you're a vampire and I'm a werewolf, we'll be okay, right?'

"Forever. We'll always be okay," I replied.

"Good," he said and got down on one knee, reaching for his pocket. 'Because I didn't get a chance to do this before and my mom just gave me the money to get this. Leah helped me pick it out this morning at the mall.' "Edward, will you marry me?"

"Yes," I answered, not even caring how, but just sticking my hand out and letting him slip the ring on. Right then it did not matter to me that gay marriage was not legal in this State, because that was the least of our concerns. Trying to get a beam of light to filter down through the clouds to shine off of my diamond was far more important. But alas, this was Forks, and there was no sunlight to be seen and try as I might, I could not make that ring sparkle. I would just have to wait for a sunnier day. But even then, I was a vampire and he was a werewolf and right now, that was a much bigger deal than the fact that the sun was not shinning or that we both had cocks. Speaking of which, I suddenly got the urge to make sure I still had one. I was a vampire now; did vampires have penises too?

I pulled back the sweatpants I had been wearing and peaked. I was not too happy with the clothes I had been dressed in at the hospital, but I was happy with what I saw in my pants. "What're you looking at Tink?" Seth asked me, peaking into my pants too. "Is that um a?"

'If vampires have giant cocks like this, then maybe I should ask him to bite me too!" Seth thought, reaching in to grab my giant erection.

My micro had not been truly a mico in years, not since Dad had given me all of those testosterone shots and I hit puberty. I had had five and a half inches of cock before I had gotten sick. I did not have a ruler with me, but I could tell that me penis had almost doubled in size. I was even bigger than Seth now.

Speaking of Seth, his scorching hot fingers were wrapped around my now very long shaft and stroking. I was almost embarrassed about our audience, but then I heard several wolves think, 'Come on, lover boy's fine. Let's get out of here before they lose their pants.'

'Agreed,' thought another wolf and at the same moment, the thought flashed through the minds of all of the wolves.

"You can have the cabin, I'll be with Tanya at Carlisle's house," William called out as he left, now heading in the other direction. "Just don't bite him!"

"Don't bite you?" I asked Seth, pulling my mouth back from his salty neck. It did not taste nearly as bad as it smelled, so I found that if I did not breathe, I hardly even noticed.

"Vampires are poisonous to werewolves. Just keep your teeth away and it'll be fine," Seth assured me. "Wait, you're not thirsty, are you?" He was worried about my teeth, but he was more turned on than ever.

"Not in the least. I'm so full I couldn't drink a fly," I replied, moaning into his neck.

"A fly?" 'You mean a human.'

"No, I've never had human and I never will, I swear to Darwin. They fed me deer, lion, and bear," I replied, pulling back and out of his grasps. I did not mention the wolves I had drank and I hoped he did not know.

Well I tried to pull back, but I did not pull back far enough and he was able to maintain his grip on my cock. The maneuver would have worked before, but not now that I had such a massive unit for him to hold on to. Note to self: pull back further next time to get penis away from Seth.

'I'm so proud of you! I love you move and more each day,' Seth thought, but he couldn't say it out loud, because he was kneeling down again and taking me into his mouth. The ugly sweatpants were around my ankles now and I wasted no time in kicking them off into the forest.

"We should take William up on his offer of his cabin: I don't have any lube," I said, thinking that I was sure to find lube in his cabin. I knew for a fact that Tanya and William liked to get freaky with the lube. Why do women feel the need to share every detail of their sex lives? Seriously, if I wanted to know about hetero sex, I would not be letting Seth suck my dick, now would I?

Seth nodded and disentangled his mouth from my penis, which made me regret saying anything, but then I thought about the lube and remembered my earlier thought about having Seth's cock up my ass, so I grabbed his hand and we ran. I had to concentrate on running slowly, because he was slower than me now. He had been the faster one for so long it was really hard getting used to.

But then we were in the cabin and Seth went straight to the lube and poured some on his fingers. I quickly threw myself into his arms, gently, and almost died again when I felt those wonderful hot fingers at my ass. Seth was always so gentle and perfect with me, making sure to stretch me so that he did not hurt me with his huge manhood, but right now I really just wanted to feel him moving in me already, so I impatiently said, "Finger fuck me already. I'm gonna die again if you make me wait any longer."

"I can't. You're tighter now or something. Get on all fours, so I can see what I'm working with," he ordered and I complied before he even finished saying the words, because I had heard them in his mind first.

'Oh no! What happened? Where's the hole? I loved that hole! It was so soft and warm and perfect, but now it's gone. Gone,' Seth's thoughts grieved, not quite making sense.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

'Shit, he heard that!' "Um Tink, I don't want you to freak out or worry, but we need to ask your dad or one of those vampires about gay vampire sex or something."

"Why? We've done it a million times."

"Yeah, but I can't get my finger in your hole now. I can see where it was, but it seems to be sealed up. I'm not sure if I should try to break the seal, or if I should leave it, or what…"

"Oh," I replied not quite sure what to say. How were we going to have gay sex without my asshole? There had to be a fix, but I did not want to leave Seth to go ask right now, so instead I suggested, "Blowjobs then?"

He nodded and turned around. I laid down and pulled at his cutoffs, the ones he always tied around his ankle when he was doing his wolf thing. I took extra care to keep my teeth away, knowing that they were dangerous to him, but everything was easy for me now, and blowjobs seemed to be no exception.

After the blowjobs, we both were still horny, and he felt so hot and perfect against me that I started dry humping him like we were teenagers again. And then I was still hard, so Seth jacked me off. And then he was hard again, so it was back to blowjobs. But for some reason I just could not get enough of him today, so I was still hard after cumming four times and poor Seth looked so exhausted and sticky that I felt sorry for him. He was always so good about putting up with my over-active sex drive and making sure to fuck me in the ass at least once a day, every day, no matter how busy he was. And now that he could not, I wanted to return the favor.

I suddenly could not stop thinking about how good Seth's hot ass would feel around my aching cock, just as Jacob's ass used to, and I found myself reaching for the lube before I even asked him. I mean Seth always let me do whatever I wanted to his body, but he had always, always, been the top and I had always been the bottom. I liked it that way and he knew it. But now that I could not bottom, I began to wonder if he would mind terribly if I topped him.

Seth's eyes were closed and he had a contended post-orgasmic smile on his face when I reached my lubed fingers down behind his ball sack and asked, "Is this okay?"

'Oh yeah. Feels so good,' he thought and nodded. 'I've been waiting for him to tell me he's ready to fuck my brains out all of these years and now it's finally happening! Patience does pay off! Jacob's gonna have to pay up that twenty when he finds out and it was Edward's idea! I didn't even have to ask him.'

"You've been waiting for me to want to top you and you never said anything?" I asked, pulling my hand back slightly and ceasing my movements.

"No, don't! Put your fingers back, please?" he begged me. 'I know what happened between you and Jake. I know he _made_ you top him: I just couldn't do that to you too. I really was happy being on the top. Your ass is perfect, trust me, I was more than happy to top all of these years. But, I've wanted to try bottoming for a while now. I've been fantasizing about you entering me for the last few months.'

"So you haven't wanted to bottom this whole time we've been together? You've just wanted it for the last, what, six months or so?" I asked, reaching my hand back down to his ass and stroking in a circle around the outside of his puckered hole.

'Yeah. I really wasn't ready before, but now I am. Please take me Tink, please?' his thoughts begged as he looked me in the eye with those beautiful dark brown eyes of his. I could see the reflection of my own bright red eyes in his eyes and I could see how much he loves me. I could also see his dick stirring and him writhing under me, so I complied with his request and pushed one finger into him.

I finger fucked Seth good and proper until he was hard and begging for every inch of me. And then I gave him what he wanted and felt that hot slick glove slowly slide over my raging hard on, as I slowly sank my shaft deeper and deeper into his body. I thought for a moment that I was not going to be able to get it all in, because Seth was an ass-virgin and my manhood was huge now. But then I added more lube and slid all of the way home.

I fucked Seth's tight ass for hours. I came, but I did not even go soft in between rounds, so I just kept pounding my boy. Or maybe he was my finance now? I was wearing his ring after all. I wondered where we would get married and I found that I could think about more than one thing at once, so with part of my brain I was planning the wedding, and with the other part I was making sure to angle my cock so that I hit his prostate with every thrust.

He was so exhausted from all the sex that he was just lying there underneath me and taking my cock. He normally was very active in the bed, but he had stopped pushing up to meet my every thrust hours ago and his eyes were even closed now. If it were not for his quick pulse, his ragged breathing, and the fact that I could read his mind, I would have thought I had lost him an hour ago. But he just kept thinking, 'Right there Tink. Yeah, ugh, right fucking there. Feels so good,' over and over in a never ending loop of ecstasy.

He was covered in cum and sweat and looked so sexy with my shaft buried balls deep in his ass that I just could not keep my hands or my mouth off of him. But finally when the sun came up a full ten hours after we entered William's cabin, I came for the fourteenth time and my cock actually went soft. I was beginning to think I might be able to leave Seth's ass alone long enough to wash him up, but then I got hard again and had to fuck him another six times.

By noon I was able to pry myself away, which was really a good thing for a number of reasons. First of all, Seth was exhausted and fell asleep the moment I pulled out of him, without even wiping the large puddle of cum off of his perfect chest. And secondly, William and Eleazar had been waiting in the forest to take me hunting again, and I really did not want them to overhear what I had been doing to Seth. And thirdly, I was getting thirsty again and Seth's heartbeat was tantalizing me. So I left with Eleazar and William, who led me to a river to wash up before handing me a pair of khakis, which I eagerly put on. I may be hung now, but I did not want anyone but Seth to see it.

Eleazar and William took turns explaining all of the rules of my new life and what was going on with my family. Dad was still at the hospital covering our tracks and planning a funeral for me, but Mom was getting closer and closer to being a vampire as we spoke. I drank another dozen animals and then I let them led me to my mother, who was lying in her bed back at our house.

I waited and watched as the conversion process went through the final stages and her heart sped up. I was worried that Seth might wake up while I was gone, but as soon as I thought this, I began searching for his voice and then I heard it. He was just having a dream back at the cabin and I found that I could listen to every thought he had while I waited by my mother's bed. I must have fucked my boy silly, because he was dreaming that he was a rabbit that had fallen down a human hole into wonderland, where he was being fucked in the ass by the Cheshire cat, who looked surprisingly like me and was hung like a vampire. Silly boy.


	66. Chapter 65

Edward's POV:

Mom woke up, but was not the same. She was still my mom, but now she was more concerned with gorging herself than with feeding me. She even tried to eat Dad, before she realized what she was doing. She was so bad that I thought she would not make it to my funeral, but Cousin Tanya was bound and determined to get her ready for the big event, which mostly meant gorging on animal blood.

Mom and I spent the day leading up to my funeral hunting in the woods outside of town, but I was absolutely stuffed long before she was done, and so I spent the last hour just lying on the ground next to a deer and licking idly at the still trickling blood. I was too full to finish my meal or drink even one more drop of blood, but that did not stop me from enjoying the taste on my tongue. Plus, I had nothing else to do while I waited for my mom to finish.

When Mom was finally so full that she could not finish her latest kill, Tanya and Kate whisked her off to get dressed, while William and Eleazar got me ready for my big performance. It was more of the same as when I pretended to be dead in the hospital, but only a lot longer. I laid in my coffin dressed in a nice suit and remained absolutely still, not even taking a breath, and listened to what my friends and family had to say about me.

Mom did not speak, but stood in the back, dressed in all black, and pretended to cry by sobbing into a black handkerchief. Dad did most of the talking, leading the ceremony and I enjoyed hearing all of the wonderful things he had to say about me and what a perfect son I had been. I was smart, beautiful, kind, stylish, and thoughtful, among other things. And after Dad finished, Seth took the stage and told everyone how hot I was and how much he loved me and that he had planned on marrying me.

After Seth, Dad opened the floor to anyone who wanted to speak and Bella and Jacob both came forward to say a few nice words for me, before Dad concluded the ceremony. He closed my casket and led the precession away to brunch, leaving me alone with Mom and our cousins. I had to stay in the casket until the coast was clear, but then Eleazar came for me and led me out the back of the funeral parlor and back to my house.

Dad came home several hours later after having entertained all of our friends and seeing to the burial of my casket. He had told everyone that Mom was too devastated to entertain company and so had gone back to the house with our cousins, explaining why she was not present at my brunch. And Dad also had to set the stage for his disappearance, saying that he and Mom were moving to Texas permanently to search for Jasper and Alice. He had already notified the hospital of his resignation, but he wanted to tell all of his friends in person.

So Dad had taken a long time to finish up the funeral stuff, but when he was done, he was finally ready to change. Eleazar bit him and we all waited three days for him to wake up and then we went through the same hunting process that we had gone through when both Mom and I were changed. But then we were a family again and ready to find my missing brothers.

We took off in the night traveling north into Canada with the Denali vampires looking for the scent of the female who had taken Emmett and Russell. It took me a long time to learn to copy the mature vampires and follow the same scent that they were trailing, but with my mind reading, I learned much quicker than Mom and Dad. After a week, I was able to pick out the right scent and follow.

We followed the meandering trail deep into Canada, despite the frequent breaks and interruptions associated with the rivers and lakes that our query kept swimming through. And believe it or not, but it was Mom who found the first vampire. I thought for sure that she and Dad were doing this tracking thing wrong, because they were not even following the right scents, but it turned out that the wrong scent was the right one.

The female who our cousins had been following had been traveling with several other vampires and their scent trails intermingled and split apart dozens of times along the trail. I could not tell yet, but the mature vampires all seemed to think that there was a female and two males traveling with the first female. Dad had been following the scent of the other female when possible and Mom was following the scent of one of the males, and since it was the first female we wanted to question and were looking for, I was certain that neither of my parents were on the right track.

But then Mom took off running into the forest, following a side path made by one of the males, and separating from our group. Tanya and Kate noticed immediately and followed after, but when the three women did not return immediately, our entire group had to backtrack to go find them. And when we did finally find them, Mom had Emmett wrapped up in her arms and was smothering him with kisses.

"Where've you been Emmett? Where's Russell?" Dad asked, but Emmett was too smothered by Mom to be able to respond. His thoughts were also focused on their reunion and did not give anything away either.

"Em, what's taking you so long?" a female voice asked from a long way off and I could hear her making her way back to our brother.

"Who's that?" Dad asked and Mom finally let up on her kissing attack, looking at Emmett pointedly and waiting for an answer.

"What's going on?" a stunningly beautiful blond female asked as she appeared from behind a tree.

"Emmett, baby, who've you been traveling with?" Mom asked, cupping her hands around my brother's face, making the blond female snarl.

"He's mine," she growled, tugging at Emmett's arm and pulling him away from Mom.

"Rus, don't you recognize Mom?" Emmett asked the blond, thinking that she was our brother Russell.

I took a harder look at the blond female and tried to see if I could recognize my brother in her. There were similarities, but there were also so many differences that it was hard to believe it was true. It was hard to believe that this vampire could possibly be a boy, because she was all woman. Her huge boobs and ample cleavage were clearly visible in the revealing top she was wearing, something Russell would never have worn, and her hips were wide, like a woman's.

Russell had female secondary characteristics ever since high school, but he hid them and never accentuated them in the slightest and I just could not see how he could possibly have turned into this gorgeous woman. She was not the least bit androgynous and I could not see her ever being a male, not even a pretty one, like my brother. But then I caught a few of her thoughts as she recognized me, Mom, and Dad and remembered a childhood memory from when Russell first came to live with us, and I knew that she was him. This woman was my brother.

"Mom, Dad, what are you doing here?" Russell asked, but my parents did not recognize him and had yet to figure it out.

"Emmett, who is this woman?" Dad asked seriously, just before Russell clobbered him in a hug.

"Dad, don't you recognize your own son? It's just Russell," Emmett answered laughing into Mom's shoulder as he hugged her once again.

"Russell? My baby? Could it really be you?" Mom asked, hoping that she had really found two of her missing boys.

It took Dad longer than Mom to even consider that the woman hugging him might be Russell, but then he did and recognized his son, and hugged her back. "What happened to you?" he finally asked.

"I'm a vampire now," Russell answered.

"Yes dear, we know. That's why we were transformed into vampires before we came after you, but we want to know what happened besides that. Who changed you and why are you here?" Mom asked.

"And how did you become a woman?" Dad added.

"I'm not a woman!" Russell screamed indignantly. "See Em, I told you I shouldn't wear this top!"

"He's a bit emotional still," Emmett warned us, before turning to his mate. "Rus, baby, we talked about this: you look _hot_ in that shirt. You need to stop fighting it and just embrace it. You're all man to me, but you make one fuck-hot mama."

I was about to ask Russell about the chick hat that matched the shirt and was covering his hair, but after hearing Emmett's thoughts and comments about how sensitive Russell was on the subject, I dropped it. It seemed no one thought Russell could pass for a man anymore so they were trying to convince him to dress like a woman.

Mom let Emmett go, because it looked to her as if Russell was going to body slam him into the ground, but instead he just pounced on his boyfriend and they started making out.

"Em, Rus, do you have to do that in front of the rest of us?" I asked disgusted. I could hear their thoughts of stripping each other's clothes off and having sex right then and there and I wanted to remind them of their audience in hopes that it would perturb their ideas.

"Oh hey Edward, I see you're a vampire now too…how's Seth dealing with that?" Emmett asked, breaking his lips away from Russell. Russell calmed down a bit, but continued to nip along Emmett's jaw and neck.

"He didn't like it at first, but then he saw the new penis and fell in love all over again," I replied smiling. I normally did not talk about this type of stuff with my brother, especially around my parents, but I was so curious about the fate of his micro that I had to ask. Did his size increase during his transformation too?

"That's great," Emmett replied, deciding he would ask what I meant later. He was thinking that there had been no change to either his or Russell's genitalia, so he was not quite sure what I was talking about.

"Are Alice and Jasper with you son?" Dad asked seriously, steering the conversation back on track.

"No, why would they be with us?" Emmett asked confused.

"Well there were another male and female traveling with you and we hoped it was them," Mom replied, already devastated that her other two child apparently were not here.

"Well we thought for sure Alice would be one of the females and we thought the two males were you and Russell, and that there was some other female with you. But then I realized just now that we had mistaken Russell's scent for a female, so we were hoping the other scents were Alice and Jasper," Dad replied. Russell smelled very flowery, like a bouquet of roses.

From their thoughts I gathered that neither of them has seen Alice and Jasper since their disappearance, so I asked, "Well if Alice and Jasper didn't change you, who did?"

"My old mom, Carol, and her boyfriend Laurent," Russell answered, thinking about the pair of vampires who had come to his dorm room that day and changed him and Emmett. He had gone willingly, thinking that if would be able to go after Alice and Jasper if he was a vampire, but then he had woken up as vampires and not thought about anything besides blood and sex since.

"How did Carol become a vampire?" William asked, stepping closer to us. The rest of our cousins were still hanging back, letting our family have a little bit of privacy during our reunion.

"Her boyfriend changed her," Russell replied.

"Yes, but I thought she was in jail, how did she get out?" Dad asked.

"She was moved to a halfway house and had a job as a waitress during the day. Laurent came into the diner, liked her, and whisked her away to change her. As soon as she was in control of herself again, she came for me and my sisters. We're on our way to meet Lily, Daisy, and Lily's boyfriend Scott. Mom already had them changed and their in northern Canada waiting for our return," Russell said.

"Only we haven't been going very fast, because we keep stopping to hunt, but Laurent said that's normal for newborns," Emmett added.

"Oh… we were hoping you'd come back and live with us," Mom replied.

"And we could sure use your help looking for Alice and Jasper, now that we know they aren't with you," Dad added.

"We hadn't even thought about them since we've been changed," Russell revealed.

"Maria probably has them. What do you think Rus, can we help?" Emmett asked.

"I wanted to see Lily and Daisy again. I haven't seen them in so long and I've barely gotten to spend any time with Carol," Russell replied.

"We don't have to go today. In fact, we'd like to meet with Carol," Dad said.

Russell nodded. We spent the rest of the day catching up before we all went off to find Carol and Laurent. Russell and Emmett led us straight to them and introduced all of us. The meeting went better than I had imagined possible, but then Dad and Carol had already had some interaction with each other when they were human. Carol seemed to admire Dad and was grateful that he had taken Russell in and treated him well and was especially impressed by the fact that Dad had come to visit her in jail all of those times, particularly when he had brought Russell to see her.

Carol told us all of the details of her story and how she was a new person, finally free from the drugs, and just trying to rebuild her family. It was not her intention to take Russell and Emmett away from us, but she just wanted to spend some time with her son and get to know him. But then she arrived at his dorm, smelled the werewolf, and knew he was not safe. She had her boyfriend change them right away, because of Seth. And to her credit she did not even think there was anything strange about her son dating a man or looking like a woman.

Mom and Dad took the news better than I thought and accepted Carol and her role in my brother's life, instead of being angry at her for taking him away. Then they told Carol of what had happened with my West Nile and how I was changed, despite being mated to a werewolf. And finally they told of Alice and Jasper and their disappearance. We were all certain that Maria must have taken them and now we were preparing to travel to Texas to find them.

Carol surprised me then, because she offered to help us. She understood the pain of a mother longing for her missing children and wanted to help Esme get her children back. Laurent would help too, which combined with Russell and Emmett would give us four more, but that was not all, because Carol had a camp full of newborn vampires waiting for her in northern Canada. She and Laurent had already converted Lily, Daisy, and Scott, as well as several more of her children who she had already found.

And so it was agreed that we would all go north to collect Carol's other children. Plus, we would need the time to fully adjust to our new bodies, master control over our thirst, and train for a fight. We were just a bunch of untrained newborns now, but we would need to be a skilled army before we could even hope to rescue my brother and sister.

* * *

><p>Author's Note: Originally I had planned on a big fight scene between Maria and the Cullens, Denalis, werewolves, and CarolLaurent on one side, and Maria and her army on the other. But fight scenes are kinda boring to me and I haven't felt like writing it in the last twelve months, so I decided to scale it down…a lot. If you want a fight scene, try The Gall Stone of Doom instead.


	67. Chapter 66

Jasper's POV:

When Alice and I left home to save my brother and his girlfriend from Maria, we had not planned on joining her army. The plan was to be turned into vampires, get Peter and Charlotte, and together find a way to escape. Then the four of us would go somewhere together and make our own coven and carve out our own territory. And if we could not cut it, maybe we would fall back on William and the Alaskan vampires and go live with them for a while.

The plan, however, was completely forgotten the moment I started burning. By the time I woke up, it was a distant fuzzy memory that I could not quite recall. And after my first hunting trip and tasting the splendor of human blood, which soothed the incessant burning in my throat, the plan was a nonexistent figment of my imagination that had been torched so thoroughly that nothing was left but a pile of ash.

So instead of following our human plan, Alice and I joined Peter, Charlotte, and the rest of the young ones following Maria's plan. Her plan involved fighting and conquest, but most importantly it involved blood, and lots of it. My mission in this life was to gorge myself on as much rich succulent sweet blood as I could. If I was thinking, I also included on my list watching out for Alice and making sure she got some blood too, but that was the extent of my plans in this life.

Peter and Charlotte were no longer family members who needed my help, but vampires who competed with me for the all-important blood. Well at least that is how I thought of them, but I could feel Peter's love for me and I knew he was not as crazed as I was. He wanted us to be a family.

"You're young, Jazz. Soon your mind will clear and you'll remember that we're brothers and love one another. Here, you take my human," Peter said to me once while we were hunting together.

I did not understand why he would give up his precious blood to me, but I took it and gulped it down greedily just the same. He thought that it was only a matter of time before I would return the favor and look out for him. He wanted us to have each other's backs and work together. He made me and Alice practice fighting with him and Charlotte every day so that we would be skilled enough to fight with them. And when we went into battle, we went into it together.

Battle was a necessity when it came to securing blood. Alice and I worked long and hard until we were at a level where we could hold our own in battle, so that we could earn even more blood for ourselves. We became good at fighting and winning. At first the other newborns were surprised at how quickly we learned and improved, but surprise quickly turned to jealously, especially when Maria made it clear that Alice and I were her favorites.

Peter and Charlotte were some of the oldest of our fighters and so along with the other older fighters, they were in charge of the rest of us, while Maria and her mate Pablo ruled our coven with an iron fist. And as her favorites, Maria was grooming Alice and me to take our place between Peter and Charlotte and her and Pablo in rank. It would be years still before we would surpass Peter and Charlotte, but Maria took me aside and assured me that we would in time. I just had to keep training, fighting, and proving my worth and that is exactly what I did in battle after battle.

It was a day like any other day. In the early morning before the sun rose Alice and I went off on our own into the city of Monterrey and found several humans to drink. We were slow returning to camp, stopping instead just outside the forest to spar. We could have gone back and sparred with the others, but we enjoyed having time to ourselves and we were well matched, because when it came to fight, Peter was our only equal among this group.

Lately Alice has been thinking less about blood and fighting and more about how to get in my pants; I knew because I could feel her arousal when we were alone. She had been too engulfed and overwhelmed by the bloodlust of the newly turned to be aroused for a long time after we woke up, but lately her head has been clearing and she has begun to think about it. I could not have that, so I dampened the lust and shared the lingering remains of the burning in my throat, because there was nothing like thirst to distract a young one.

Alice and I had not been sexually active since we were humans and I was not about to change that anytime soon. This was not something I planned, but ever since my conversion when I woke up and discovered that my silicon testicular implants did not make it through the change with me, I have not been able to bear the thought of having sex. That day I pulled the silicon balls out of my underwear and pulled said underwear away from my body just enough to be horrified by what was suddenly between my legs again, because the conversion completely undid the entire surgery and I was right back to how I was pre-op.

I did not take the news very well and ripped several limbs off of the vampires who were watching me, including Peter, but I was too new and too volatile to stop myself. Eventually, after Maria's entire army came to Peter's aid, they managed to force me into submission. They gave me a pen full of humans to take my rage out on and reunited me with Alice and I have not had another meltdown since. But then, I have not looked at my genitalia since then either.

As a vampire, I have yet to need to remove my underwear and we rarely even change our clothes. After a battle I take a dip in the river to clean up, but I keep my clothes on for that, even if I do normally switch my shirt due to tears. Out of sight, out of mind, and that was how it is going to stay; I just have to keep it out of Alice's mind too and we will be alright.

"Do you think it's too late to go back and get one more human?" Alice asked me, clutching at her throat. Back when we were human she would have looked for a vision to answer her question, but visions require focus to conjure, and that was something she did not have. She still saw plenty, but only whatever happened to pop into her head and she was completely unable to focus her mind enough to see what she wanted to see. Mostly she saw blood, fights, and potential danger, but even then many things slipped past her.

"The sun's already rising, but if we stick to the shadows and are quick about it, we could find one more," I replied before taking her hand and leading her back towards the outskirts of town.

It was wrong of me to make her thirsty, I knew, but it was the only way, so I led her towards an easy prey. We could see a bum passed out drunk at the end of an alley, but when we moved to enter the ally, a smell alerted me to the danger. I smelled many vampires and not one of them I recognized, so I grabbed Alice by the shoulder to stop her. She turned around and hissed at me, angry that I was stopping her when she was so close to blood, but then she smelled the danger too and we ran.

We were running back towards Maria and her army when several vampires stepped out in front of us, blocking our escape. There were many vampires in back of us, judging by the wide variety and mix of emotions, not to mention smells, so we were surrounded. I lowered my center of gravity into a defensive crouch, preparing to spring and defend my mate at a moment's notice.

I looked over my shoulder at Alice, only to see that she was lost in a vision. Of all the times for a vision to hit, why does it have to be now? This would probably get us both killed, because she could be rendered defenseless by her visions. Often times they helped, because she would see the near future and use it to her advantage in fighting, but judging by the happiness she was emitting, I highly doubted this was a vision of the fight and so I knew that I would have to save us both on my own.

I sized up my opponents and decided that the large young male with the red eyes and the curly black hair was my biggest threat. I tucked Alice behind me and positioned myself directly in front of the large male and prepared to strike.

"Don't Jasper, you'll kill Emmett," another young male warned.

This male had bright red eyes and copper colored hair that was strangely familiar for some reason, but I did not take the time to figure out why he seemed familiar. I turned myself towards him and was about to launch myself at him when Alice reached up and grabbed my arm saying, "Stop Jazz. They're not here to harm us."

"Alice, why didn't you see this coming? You normally see anything dangerous," I asked now that she was with me again.

"Because they aren't here to harm us. It's just Mom, Dad, Emmett, Russell, and Edward. They've come to bring us back to Washington," Alice replied.

"Concentrate Alice, we need to escape. You have to cover my back as I fight our way out of here," I ordered.

"No Jazz, I want to go home. William's here too," she replied pointing to the nurse who had cared for her as a child.

William was behind me with the rest of Carlisle's cousins from Alaska and a bunch of other vampires I had never met before. I was surprised to see them, but I recognized him immediately, because he had not changed at all. The same could not be said for my brothers, aunt, and uncle, however, because they looked nothing like I remembered. They had been human the last time I had seen them, but now they were vampires. If it were not for their familiar emotional signatures I probably never would have recognized them. As it was, I still could not figure out which one was supposed to be Russell or who all the extra blond females were.

"Alice, Jasper, we've been looking all over for you. Please come back with us before Maria notices our presence," Aunt Esme said.

"Why'd you bring an army with you if don't mean to destroy us?" I asked, indicating the army of blond newborn females. They did not look particularly intimidating, but they were all newborns and there were two males in the group as well.

"In case we had to fight Maria for you," Uncle Carlisle said. "My cousins wouldn't go after you alone because they said it was too dangerous and that we'd need an army of our own. They really aren't an army, just our extended family."

"No, no family would have so many newborns unless they were an army," I retorted.

"Mom and Dad had me changed because I was dying and they had themselves changed so that they could take care of me and go after the rest of you," Edward explained. "Russell and Emmett were changed by Russell's biological mother and her boyfriend, along with all of Russell's siblings." He kept pointing to the blond chick with the huge knockers who was clinging to Emmett, but he also indicated the army of newborn blonds as well.

"Where is Russell?" I asked, thinking that he will be livid when he finds out about the chick hanging off of his husband.

"That is Russell," Edward said indicating the same blond chick next to Emmett again. "He looks even more like a girl now, but he's still our Russell."

"We need to hurry, before we're found out. Will you go with us and let us explain further?" William asked, stepping forward and reaching his hand out to Alice.

Alice nodded, but seeing my human family reminded me of my human mission and I suddenly realized just how poorly my rescue attempt had gone. "I can't without Peter and Charlotte. That's why we came: I promised to help them get away," I said.

"They're already coming," Alice replied, pointing off towards Maria's camp.

I turned my head, worried that the entire army was coming, but was relieved to see just the two shapes running towards us. I could recognize my brother from miles away, so I knew it was him.

"Maria sent him to find you two, because she's trying to gather everyone together to go over your attack strategy. We need to leave immediately before she notices that they've been gone too long and sends your army after us," Edward said. I wondered how he knew that and I got my answer, because he added, "I can read minds now. Get your brother and his girlfriend and let's go."

Peter and Charlotte felt panicked as they neared me, so I calmed them and said, "This is our family. They've come to take us back to Forks and I want you two to come with us. We have to hurry."

Peter nodded, but Charlotte began to question him. He silenced her with a look and asked, "Where to?"

"Out of town so that we can talk. Then we'll sit down and explain everything and you can decide if you want to continue with us," Uncle Carlisle replied.

Once again Peter nodded and then we were off. This group was clearly not a trained army, because they were not running like one. They kept breaking formation and chasing one another, instead of concentrating on our safety. The mature vampires were the only ones besides Peter, Charlotte, Alice, and me who seemed at all concerned about our safety and the fact that we were in enemy territory; even Aunt Esme and Uncle Carlisle seemed clueless.

Luckily we were not challenged and were able to run north into Oklahoma that day. It was a sunny day, so we had to stick to the shadows and what little trees there were in the area, but we stayed to the uninhabited regions as much as possible and rarely crossed paths with a human. When a human was coming, Alice or Edward would warn us and we would all hide until it was safe again, before continuing on.

The Denalis wanted to stop in Oklahoma to explain, but Peter and I did not feel safe there, because we knew of an army who claimed it as their territory, so we kept going until we reached Kansas. The mature vampires led us to a secluded spot deep within the woods and then explained what was going on. Russell's mother and boyfriend took the army of blond females off to hunt, but the rest of us stayed there and talked.

They seemed genuine in their assertion that this was a rescue mission and my aunt and uncle just wanted their children back. William also wanted Alice back, but that was because he felt like a father to her and wanted her to be happy and did not think she would be happy fighting. My aunt and uncle were willing to take Peter and Charlotte with them, but they were reluctant to go, because of their worry over territory. Maria had plenty of hunting territory and it seemed foolish to leave it behind only to have to carve out another territory in the north.

But then William and Tanya explained that the north works differently than the south and that vampires are free to roam as nomads and not hold territory if they choose. Tanya had claimed the Denali forest and we were welcome to join her there, but there was no need to defend it, because no one else wanted it. My aunt and uncle explained that they planned on going back to Denali with them and hoped that we would all join them.

Edward surprised me by saying he was going back to La Push to live on the reservation with Seth when this was all over. Vampires were not typically allowed on werewolf property, but Edward was the exception, because he was still Seth's imprint. I was shocked to learn that the conversion had not broken the imprint, but it was what it was and if my brother wanted to cross the species boundary for love, I was not going to stop him.

In the end Peter, Charlotte, Alice, and I decided to go back to Alaska with my aunt and uncle and so we took off north again, only this time heading west as well. We made a detour in Washington to drop Edward off in Forks, but then we set off once again for Alaska. Russell's relatives broke off from the group in Yukon, but the rest of us kept going. The Denali national forest was everything they had described, but we found it hard to adjust.

Not only was the climate the utter opposite of Texas, but Tanya and her coven were vegetarian vampires. They had mentioned this in Kansas when they had told us all about life in the north, but I had not believed it until I saw it. My aunt and uncle actually drank deer blood! In front of me! And what is even more unbelievable is that they even liked it. They claimed that it quenched their thirst and did not poison them and they seemed to be telling the truth.

They wanted the rest of us to try their way of life, but we were skeptical. Luckily Russell and Emmett were used to Human too, so the pressure was not only on us. The vegetarians started off small with making us watch them consume animals, while still letting us hunt humans, but eventually they began to require us to try it ourselves. We all struggled with the switch, but over time it became more and more bearable.

And so we stayed in the Denali national park gorging ourselves on animals and Seth and Edward even joined us. Edward was welcome on the reservation, but he wanted to spend more time with his family, so they decided to switch off between the two families. They would spend half of the year with the werewolves and half the year with the vampires.

And so we all lived happily ever after, mostly because Maria had assumed that we were killed by the large army that had been scented in Monterrey.

* * *

><p>Author's Note:<p>

Each of the Cullen children had an issue he or she was dealing with in this story. Jasper was dealing with body image, which was why he had the surgery. Russell was dealing with gender identity, which was why he kept going back and forth between genders. Emmett struggled in the beginning with his sexuality, before realizing that he's bi. Edward had boy troubles and took forever to find the right one and even then was embarrassed of the micro. And Alice didn't know how to treat Mr. Right once she found him. So I'm wondering how well this came across. Did any of you notice any of these things about the kids?

This story could probably use an epilogue, but I have no plans on writing one and this is the last chapter, so feel free to imagine the epilogue going however you wish. Thank you to everyone who read and especially those who reviewed! If you are interested in reading more from me, I'm currently working on the sequel to The Gall Stone of Doom: it's called Bezoars of Yesterday and Tomorrow.


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